


Popsicle Stick Homes and Construction Paper Hearts

by GinnyRose



Category: The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Alastair Raises Baby Carstairs, Alastair is Thirsty, Alastair is a good Parent, Alastair is tired, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anna Lightwood is a Good Bro, Canonical Daddy Issues, Elias Carstairs is not a good father, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Good Sibling Dynamics, Improper Use of Classrooms, Kindergarten, M/M, Meet-Cute, Parent Alastair Carstairs, Past Character Death, Teacher Thomas Lightwood, The Herondales are good people, Thomas is a Gentleman, canonical alcohol abuse, lightstairs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:07:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24132592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinnyRose/pseuds/GinnyRose
Summary: Made the guardian of a newborn child at just nineteen, Alastair has done his absolute most to be the best parent he could for his little brother. He got through sleepless nights with an infant, mastered diaper changing and bottle feeding. He survived potty training and managed to get through all of his brother's preschool classes without murdering a single other parent. Year One should have been a breeze.That was, at least, until Alastair met the patient, kind-hearted, and unforgivably attractive teacher, Mr. Lightwood. Alastair knows the teacher is absolutely, 100%, completely, unquestionably off-limits. But he has also never been known for sound dating decisions. And Mr. Lightwood truly is stupidly handsome.
Relationships: Alastair Carstairs/Thomas Lightwood
Comments: 59
Kudos: 297





	1. Chapter 1

_The lights of the club were pounding along with the music. Alastair normally hated these kinds of places but he had to admit the view in front of him made the awful club music nearly bearable. Alastair couldn’t remember the man’s name but that hardly mattered and had rarely stopped him before. What mattered in that moment was that the man was both ridiculously attractive and seemed just as interested in Alastair as he was in him. The man smiled, an adorable grin that was just self-conscious enough that he didn’t look like a complete asshole but confident enough that Alastair knew he wouldn’t be wasting his time, and reached out to grab hold of Alastair’s hips._

_Alastair allowed himself to be pulled in close to the man. The man was several inches taller than Alastair and built far more broadly than Alastair’s slim frame – exactly the way Alastair liked them, in truth, and he relished in the warm, strong hands holding onto his waist as they began to dance together, moving their hips to the beat of a truly atrocious but catchy club hit. It had been far too long since he had a moment to himself like this and Alastair wondered if it would be too forward to invite the man to more than a dance. He wouldn’t be able to take him home, of course, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something a little risqué in the bathroom of a seedy club. Or the first time in this particular club, for that matter._

_Just as Alastair was about to lean in and whisper his suggestion into the ear of his new, temporary friend, he felt someone jab him rather forcefully in his back. Probably it was just some over-enthusiastic dancer’s elbow – Alastair was always getting jabbed in places like this. Too many bodies too close together. He would just ignore it._

_Another jab. The person behind him was probably drunk._

_Another. And then, most peculiarly, a faint voice calling out to him. One that sounded both very familiar and very out of place in a nightclub…_

Alastair squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, resisting the urge to let out a frustrated groan into the pillow beneath his head. Not even in his dreams could he get lucky. He was eternally doomed to be forever frustrated, it seemed.

Another jab against his back, followed by a tiny, fervent whisper. “Alastair! Alastair!”

“Go away,” Alastair grumbled, turning fast to try to get away from the nuisance who had disturbed his dreams. “Five more minutes,” he added, although he knew they would be wasted. There was no way Alastair could return to his dream and the man who had been there now.

“No!” The tiny voice argued and this time Alastair could feel the thump of a small body as his attacker jumped on the bed beside him. “It’s time to get up! We’re going to be late!” The tiny voice drew out the last word so that it resembled more of a warbling cry than an actual word in any language Alastair knew. It was like a magic word being uttered – Alastair’s eyes flew open like a princess from a deep sleep. His gaze was greeted by the appearance of a tiny face, all chubby olive cheeks and wide doe eyes surrounded by soft black curls.

“What do you mean ‘late’?” Alastair demanded, voice still hoarse from sleep. His little brother jutted his bottom lip out in an impressive pout and he pointed to the clock on Alastair’s bedside table. Alastair followed his brother’s finger and nearly swore. It was 8:11, which meant he had less than twenty minutes to get Eliot ready and out the door if he wanted him to be on time for his first ever day of school. Placing one hand onto Eliot’s back to keep him from falling off the bed, Alastair lurched up and felt around for his cellphone with his free hand. It took less than a moment to realize the root cause of the problem – Alastair had forgotten to plug his phone in and it had died sometime in the dead of the night.

Barely resisting the urge to curse the ceiling blue, Alastair hastily felt around for his phone charger and shoved it into his phone before jumping out of bed. “You need to get dressed!” he told his brother as he dashed towards his bathroom. He didn’t have enough time to dress himself, but if he was fast enough, he could at least get his teeth brushed before fixing something for Eliot to eat.

“I am dressed!” Eliot sounded indignant as he followed Alastair into the bathroom. Alastair risked a glance at his brother as he squirted a generous glob of toothpaste onto his toothbrush and shoved it into his mouth. Eliot was wearing the khaki trousers and navy-blue cardigan of his school uniform. Cordelia – who had babysat Eliot the night before while Alastair had been stuck at work - must have left it for Eliot before she’d put him to bed as there was simply no way the little boy would have found all the pieces himself. Alastair felt a wave of affection for his sister and inwardly vowed to be extra nice to her fiancé, James, in their upcoming family dinner.

He had done a fairly decent job for himself – all the buttons of his cardigan were in order and he had managed to half pull his white collar out. But his tie – and honestly why the school uniform for five-year-olds required actual ties Alastair couldn’t even begin to understand – was nothing more than a sad little half knot and part of his collar was sticking straight up. Plus, just because it looked like a child was more or less appropriately dressed didn’t mean they actually were. “Did you change your underwear?” he demanded as he spit the excess toothpaste into the sink and bent down to quickly retie Eliot’s tie and fix his collar. Eliot made a show of rolling his eyes – or his version of it, anyway. He hadn’t quite mastered it and tended to roll his entire head along with his eyes – it was cute when he wasn’t doing it to Alastair.

“Yes!”

“Teeth?” Alastair asked, as he moved out from the bathroom. He didn’t have time to change his clothing but at least he was wearing a plain shirt and dark sweats rather than actual pajamas. Hopefully it made him look like he was really into athleisure wear rather than just a complete mess.

“There’s no time!” Eliot protested as Alastair made his way out of his bedroom and down the small hall that led to their kitchen.

“There is always time.” Alastair told him sternly as opened the cupboard to see what he could feed Eliot without taking too much time. “Go brush while I make you breakfast.” Eliot let out a loud groan of protest before turning around and heading back down the hall. Alastair didn’t have time to make Eliot even a bowl of cereal, let alone his preferred breakfast of toast with orange marmalade, and so it was with a slight twinge of guilt – his mother would have been furious if she knew – that Alastair swiped a package of toaster pastries from the top shelf. Eliot preferred them cold anyway. To make himself feel a bit better, Alastair also grabbed a clementine from the wooden fruit bowl and set them both on the table for Eliot to grab when he returned before turning to the fridge, intent on making a quick lunch for Eliot.

He opened the fridge and let out a silent breath of relief – there on the middle shelf was Eliot’s dinosaur-shaped lunch bag with a note written in Farsi from Cordelia taped to its front.

 _Had some extra time and thought I’d make things a little easier for you! Love you both!_ Cordelia’s words were followed by an inordinate amount of hearts and X’s and O’s but Alastair would let it slide this time. She really had been a great help to them. Alastair grabbed the bag and quickly turned to rummage through the junk drawer next to the fridge. He only had a minute before Eliot would be back and, running late or not, he wasn’t going to forget this.

Pulling out a small pad of paper and a pen, Alastair quickly jotted down a note of his own – _I love you!_ before folding it up and slipping it into Eliot’s lunch box. Even if Eliot couldn’t yet read fully, he would recognize those words and he was still little enough that they would make him happy rather than embarrassed. It had been a tradition from their mother - little notes written in her language hidden inside every lunch all throughout primary school – and even though she had been gone for years now, Alastair would be damned before he let Eliot miss out on the little traditions she had left behind.

Eliot came barreling back in just as Alastair finished zipping up his lunchbox. He had made a detour into his own room to grab his little backpack – bright blue and decorated with tiny cartoon cats because Eliot had insisted that all his new school supplies had to consist of his two favorite animals, cats and dinosaurs – and it was jangling behind him as he ran. “I’m all ready now!” He called out, even though Alastair could see a small line of toothpaste remnants on his chin clear as day.

“Nearly,” Alastair told him, bending down to wipe the toothpaste from his chin with his free hand. It was a little gross to do it with his bare hand but five years of taking care of a small, messy baby that had turned into a marginally larger, messy child had made him practically immune to most bodily fluids. “Grab your breakfast,” he told him, straightening up and wiping his hand on a dish towel that had been left out on the counter before gesturing to the packaged pastry and clementine on the table. “You can eat in the car.”

Eliot quickly did as he was told and followed Alastair as he went into the living room, grabbing his keys off the hook and slipping his feet into a pair of slippers he’d left by the couch as Eliot pulled on his - thankfully already tied– trainers. before heading out the front door, leaving it open only long enough to allow Eliot to slide out after him before quickly locking it. “Hand,” Alastair told him, shifting Eliot’s lunch box into the hand with his keys so that he could offer a free hand to his brother. Eliot took it immediately and they made their way down the hallway and towards the elevator.

It was blissfully empty – Alastair had been slightly worried that Mrs. Number 311 across the hall would be out and about but it seemed the nosey old bat was having a bit of a lie-in and they were free from scrutiny as they rushed out of the elevator, Eliot practically running to keep up with his brother’s long strides. The doorman, a kindly older man who only went by Alfie and always had a smile for Eliot, nodded in greeting as they rushed past him. Alastair, inwardly grateful that he’d had the foresight to park in front of their apartment complex rather than the adjourning garage that was just for tenant use the night before, quickly unlocked the car and herded Eliot into his booster seat. “Make sure your breakfast doesn’t go all over,” Alastair directed as he helped buckle Eliot in before taking hold of the pastry package and ripping it open.

“We gotta hurry!” Eliot said, big brown eyes wide and pleading even as he smashed one of his hands into his bag to rip off a piece of pastry. Eliot had been excited for his very first day of primary school ever since Alastair had told him about it – he had been loudly claiming that the preschool he used to go to, despite being one of the best in their area of London, was too baby-ish for him and Alastair knew that if they were late for their very first day of primary school, he would very well not be hearing the end of it until Eliot graduated secondary.

“We’re not going be late,” Alastair assured him before quickly shutting Eliot’s door and opening the driver’s door. He slipped Eliot’s lunch bag into the passenger seat and quickly started the car up. He had barely buckled himself before he was pulling out of his spot and onto the road.

Traffic was, surprisingly, not terrible and Alastair only had to moderately break speeding laws to get to the school on time. Eliot, apart from a few grumblings whenever they were stopped at a traffic light and one request for Alastair to help him with his clementine – his fingernails weren’t nearly long enough to stab into the peel, was quiet throughout the trip and Alastair made a mental note to bring snacks along for drives more often. He loved his brother with all his heart but there were only so many facts about cats one man was meant to learn about.

“We’re here!” Alastair told him as he pulled into the closest available spot to the school. He glanced at the dashboard clock as he parked the car. They had five minutes to make a mad dash for Eliot’s classroom.

"Yay! Let’s go!” Eliot cheered as he fumbled at his seat belt, not quite strong enough to push the button in. Alastair unclasped his own before reaching back to free his little brother.

“Make sure you grab your backpack!” Alastair told him as he swiped up Eliot’s lunch bag and opened his door before heading to Eliot’s. Eliot had a very worrying habit of playing with the door handle when bored and so Alastair always had the child locks on which was wonderful most times and a real pain when they were in a hurry. At least in this case, Eliot was excited to go where Alastair was taking him and he was ready to jump down from his seat the moment Alastair opened his door. “Hand!” Alastair told him and Eliot obediently wrapped his little fingers around Alastair’s own.

This time, Alastair strode so quickly that Eliot did have to run, his little legs pumping as quickly as he could make them to keep up. “We’re going to be late!” The little boy moaned again as they entered the small building and began down the large, brightly colored main hallway.

“We _are_ not!” Alastair responded back, inwardly grateful for the summer orientation he had been forced to attend with the other parents and guardians. He may not have met Eliot’s teacher and he may have been forced to interact with far too many middle-aged mothers who thought their child was the next greatest thing to hit England, but at least he knew the way to the classroom.

There were a few other parents walking down the halls, probably having just finished saying goodbye to their own children, who were giving Alastair and Eliot odd looks but Alastair expertly ignored then as he marched as quickly as possible to Eliot’s classroom. Room 12 came quickly into view and Alastair breathed a silent sigh of relief to see that the classroom door was still open and, more importantly – there were still a few parents milling around and saying goodbye to their children. One tiny girl with a mass of curly black hair was outright sobbing into her mother’s skirt right outside the door and Alastair made a quick twist to get around her, looking straight ahead to avoid eye contact with the mother and forcing himself to keep a neutral expression.

Alastair adored his little brother with all his heart and he had always thought growing up – before Eliot had come into the world – he would have a child or two of his own to raise but, with few other exceptions, Alastair did _not_ like other people’s children. Or perhaps, more accurately, Alastair did not like other children’s _parents_. There was nothing wrong with that little girl expressing her emotions but there was something abhorrent to him that the mother just stood there, apparently waiting for her child to cry it out with an almost impatient look on her face. If Eliot was having a breakdown of that magnitude, Alastair would not just leave him there to melt down for all to see, if he could help it. And he certainly wouldn’t do nothing but stand there.

But it was not Alastair’s place to make any comment on another person’s parenting, so he passed by without saying anything and tugged lightly on Eliot’s small hand when he made motions to stop. “Don’t gawk,” Alastair murmured low enough that only Eliot could hear and he obediently turned back around. Fortunately for Alastair, the bright, nearly garish decorations of the classroom were more than enough to distract Eliot from the little crying girl.

“Look!” He said, his little voice loud with excitement as he pointed with his free hand to the very short circular tables around the room. The tables were made of some light wood but the accompanying wooden chairs were all brightly painted so that each table had a little rainbow of seats around it. “Look!” He repeated before Alastair had a chance to respond, and pointed this time to the wall on the far side of the room where a series of brightly colored papers and posters, detailing everything from the ABC’s and the 123’s to a carefully worked students’ chore chart, had been painstakingly tacked up.

“Yes, it’s all very nice.” Alastair told Eliot before gently steering towards the wall closest to them that hosted large little cubby holes made of the same wood as the tables. “But come here so we can put your things away.” There wasn’t much time left and Alastair didn’t want to be one of those parents saying their goodbyes while the teacher tried to get the students settled in for class. Eliot allowed himself to be tugged over to the walls even as he twisted around this way and that to take in the wonders of his Year One classroom.

There were small laminated placards for each cubby hole and Alastair quickly scanned them for his brother’s name. It was near the top, sandwiched between two small cartoon pencils and Eliot made a noise approval when he saw them. “It’s so cool,” he said, reaching up to brush chubby fingers against the clear plastic. Alastair made a noncommittal noise of agreement as he placed Eliot’s lunch bag into the hole.

“It’s all very nice, you’ll have to tell your teacher he did a good job.” Alastair told Eliot, drawing the little boy’s attention back to him. “Now hand me your bag, please, and I’ll put it in for you.” Eliot pulled his backpack off and handed it to Alastair. It was easy enough to slide the bag next to his lunch box and then all that was left to do was say goodbye. Mindful that their five minutes were mostly over and that he was one of the last adults in the room, Alastair dropped down so that he was level with his brother and had his full attention.

“Now, you’ll be nice to the other children and good for your teacher, won’t you?” Eliot gave a perfunctory nod. He generally got along with other children well and – bar the occasional meltdown that happened with every child – listened to adults so Alastair wasn’t terribly worried. He was a lot more like Cordelia than him in that aspect. “I’ll be here at 2 to get you, okay? Don’t leave the classroom until I’m here.” Another nod. Followed closely by some squirming – there were children giggling raucously right behind them now, drawing Eliot’s attention somewhat away. Alastair couldn’t quite blame him – he had only been looking forward to this day since he’d first heard of “real school.” “And have fun, okay? I love you.” The last words were said in Farsi – Alastair always made sure that the most important words were in their mother’s language.

She should have been here, to witness this monumental moment for her youngest child, and in that instant Alastair felt the bone-deep ache of her loss. But then Eliot was wrapping his arms around Alastair and squeezing tightly, repeating his words back to him with all the sincerity of a child, and although the pain didn’t quite go away – the sting of unfairness and sorrow never did, really – it dulled significantly as Alastair hugged his brother back.

“Go on now,” Alastair told him after a moment, leaning back on his heels and gesturing for Eliot to head off. Eliot only hesitated for a moment, his brown eyes suddenly unsure.

"You’ll be here, right? When it’s time to go?” He asked, still speaking in Farsi, and Alastair nearly laughed. He had the exact same fear his first day, even though his mother had always been there without fail, the moment the final bell rang.

“I’ll be right at that door, waiting for you to tell me everything,” Alastair assured him before leaning over and placing a soft kiss on the top of Eliot’s head. Eliot gave him a bright smile, fears assuaged, and turn to run into the small gaggle of children who were all gathered around something Alastair couldn’t quite make out.

Alastair straightened up as he watched Eliot slip into the small group effortlessly. He was good with other children and made friends easily and Alastair only hoped that wouldn’t change as he got older. Small children, Alastair often thought, were generally very kind and open-minded, although brutally honest and it wasn’t until they are older that prejudices and cruelty seeped in. He had been ten years old when his skin and the language he spoke with his mother and sister first began to be an issue for other children and he could only hope it would be even older for Eliot. He was not naïve enough to hope it would never come; enough parents had given them odd looks or gently steered their children away when they spoke Farsi for him to know the world had not changed nearly as much as people liked to think it had.

But Eliot was still little enough that Alastair could shield him from the brunt of those people and their opinions and he and the other children were not old enough for their differences to matter much when it came to friendships. Alastair pushed his foreboding thoughts from his mind and allowed himself one final look at his little brother – he had said something Alastair couldn’t quite hear that must have been hilarious because the little girl next to him had thrown her head back in a fit of gleeful giggles in response.

He was going to do well in school, Alastair was sure. But that didn’t make it much easier to force himself to turn away and head to the door. It was a weird feeling – he knew his brother was going to be perfectly fine and he yet he was still loath to leave him there. Perhaps he simply didn’t like that Eliot was growing up so quickly – he had the rather peculiar, nonsensical feeling that he would blink and the little brat will have a diploma in hand.

Perhaps this was the same feeling his mother had, dropping him off for his very first day of first year. Perhaps it was the feeling every parent had, when their child had grown big enough not to need them.

Or perhaps Alastair’s lack of sleep was making him stupidly nostalgic for things that were far in the future. Eliot still asked him to leave the hall light on and needed him to help tie his shoes. He was many leagues away from no longer needing Alastair.

It was most definitely the lack of sleep. Alastair was normally never quite so ridiculous about mundane things like dropping Eliot off the for the day. Shaking his head to clear all the thoughts from his head and giving a wave to Eliot who had glanced back up at him just briefly to smile at him one last time, Alastair turned to make his way to the door. Class was most definitely supposed to start by now but, Alastair noticed as he made to head out of the classroom, his and Eliot’s almost tardiness had been completely obscured by a small gaggle of parents all trying to talk to the teacher. Alastair had hoped to speak to Eliot’s teacher – a Mr. Thomas Lightwood who had been unable to make the orientation day and whose name Alastair only remembered because he coincidentally shared a last name with Anna– but he didn’t want to be one of those overeager guardians who prevented teachers from doing their jobs – and so he slipped past the little group without saying anything. He would speak to the man after class, once he came to pick up Eliot.

The poor man was probably feeling overwhelmed anyway. One of the parents speaking with him was positively _gigantic_.

* * *

Alastair had mercifully had the foresight to take Eliot’s first day off and so it was back to their apartment that he went. He nodded politely at Alfie who was all smiles as usual as he held the door open. It felt odd, returning to the apartment without Eliot right beside him – Alastair worked Mondays through Fridays, typically leaving early enough to be home to make dinner, and so it wasn’t often at all that Alastair was home without his little brother. Of course, had Alastair done what everyone had tried to convince him to do when Eliot first became his responsibility, he would have gone through spurts of always being home without him, followed by spurts of never being home, so he supposed this odd, empty feeling he was experiencing now as he set his keys back on their hook and slipped out of his shoes – thankful that no other parent had noticed he was wearing actual _slippers_ – was a decent trade off.

Alastair didn’t think about his father nearly as often as he did his mother – Cordelia had wanted Eliot to know about both their parents equally but Alastair found it much harder to talk about a man who had thrown his life away than a woman who had lost hers and so Cordelia was mostly in charge of telling their little brother the good things about their father – but he found his thoughts drifting towards the man as he headed back into his bedroom. He had been given the chance to take over his father’s job in the Carstairs company – a lucrative deal that almost everyone had urged him to take, almost entirely because they had all assumed that after his father’s spectacular and public fall from grace, few outside businesses would risk him. But Alastair had just been given custody of a tiny, squirming Eliot and the idea of putting his little brother through the special kind of hell that Alastair and Cordelia had gone through – the constant traveling, never putting down roots, being forced to wonder when or even if their father was going to make it home to them – had filled him with such loathing that he had rejected it on the spot.

The job had gone to a distant Carstairs cousin and although Alastair got a few occasional pointed looks or comments from family members who thought that he’d made a huge mistake by settling at the firm he currently worked at, most had accepted his decision. It wasn’t as though he and Eliot were struggling either, thanks both to Alastair’s sizeable salary and the considerable fortune left to all three of the Carstairs children from their parents, so no one could even say that Alastair had failed to provide for his little brother by not taking the job. Nor, could any of them say, he thought with the sort of vindictive pleasure only thoughts of his father could bring out, that Alastair was doing less for Eliot than Elias would have done. Surely Elias, for one, would have never taken the time off to take Eliot to school and even if he, by some miracle, had, he wouldn’t have been sober enough to drive him himself.

No, Alastair was pleased with absolutely everything he’d done differently from his father but his decision to take a job that allowed him to be present for Eliot was something he felt most satisfied about.

Even if it made him, a young twenty-four-year-old man, feel strange standing in his bedroom all alone with nothing to do for several hours. He didn’t have these sorts of days often and perhaps had he thought it through, he would have planned to do something extravagant for himself, like an outing to an art exhibit that Eliot wasn’t quite old enough to properly enjoy yet or meet up with an old friend for lunch. But Alastair didn’t know of any shows worthy of the effort and most of his old uni friends had fallen out of touch after he got Eliot – being the primary caretaker of an infant in a group consisting of young, beautiful and rich college students tended to squash most social plans – and all of his remaining friends were undoubtedly at work.

Plus he had things around the apartment he could do. They had a housekeeper who came in once a week for deep cleaning, but the kitchen could use a straightening up. And Eliot had gone up a size so Alastair needed to clear out his clothes and package up all too-small outfits for donation. And since he had taken the day off, he might as well get the shopping done early, rather than leaving it for Saturday. Then he could plan an outing for him and Eliot, maybe invite his friend Anna and her littlest brother – Alexander was just over three years older than his brother but they got along rather well – to come with. Eliot had been begging to go to one of the weekend events at the Museum of London ever since his “auntie Ari” – Alastair must have been very, very drunk when he’d agreed to let his little brother call Anna’s partner Ariadne that back when he was just a toddler but it had stuck and there was no way to convince the boy to drop it now – and it would be a good reward for a good first week at school.

Or perhaps he could find something to do that didn’t make him sound so utterly old. Or wouldn’t be that tiring, for that matter. Alastair really was exhausted.

He’d take a short rest, and then decide on what to do.

* * *

Alastair awoke several hours later, bleary-eyed and foggy-headed, and reached blindly for his phone. It had thankfully remained connected to the charger and Alastair blinked his eyes several times before he could make out the too-bright screen to check the time. And then he blinked several more times because obviously the time had to be wrong. There was no way he had slept until 12:30 and now only had an hour until he needed to leave to pick up Eliot. Absolutely no way.

But the time was not changing between blinks and with an audible curse – there was no small child present to parrot his words at the most inopportune times so Alastair could swear as loudly and creatively as he pleased – he leapt from the bed in a horribly familiar manner. That was twice in one day that Alastair had overslept, a personal low he had not achieved since finishing his exams with a baby strapped to his chest and Alastair only had himself to blame. He should have known better than to work overtime this close to having to be up for Eliot and now he was surely going to pay the price.

He practically sprinted into the bathroom. He didn’t have the time for a proper shower now but he’d be damned if he went to pick up his little brother in pajamas at two in the afternoon. Appearance really was a large part of impressions, especially amongst the moderate to solidly wealthy parents that Eliot’s new school was absolutely full of, and Alastair would rather die than give any of those stuffy bats any reason to think Alastair incapable of caring for his brother properly.

He scrubbed his face thoroughly before quickly shaving the slight stubble that had begun shadowing his face. Alastair disliked facial hair as a general rule – it may look good on many men but it was scruffy and uncomfortable to the touch unless properly taken care of and he had met decidedly few men who actually bothered to do it correctly – and doubly so on his own face. Moisturizer came right after, followed by a quick comb of his hair – normally he’d put more effort into styling it, but he was running far too late for that - and then Alastair was back out of the room, glad that he had already brushed his teeth, and heading towards his closest.

Alastair normally wore suits on weekdays, mostly because his job required them but also because he liked them – there had been several times that Cordelia’s best friend had called him ‘a total Barney’ which he had learned came from some American sitcom he didn’t care to know about – but the feel of a good solid suit against his skin helped him feel confident in a way normal clothes didn’t and he knew he looked good in them. There was nothing wrong with that, but even he knew that a full-on suit just to pick up Eliot was way too much, so he settled for a nice but casual dark blue button down and a pair of black slacks.

He had just enough time to eat a cup of Greek yogurt from the fridge – he’d need to eat more when he got back or Cordelia would have his head for skipping meals _again_ – and grab one of the iced coffee drinks and phone to take with him before heading back into his bedroom for a pair of proper shoes and cellphone. Once his cellphone was firmly stuffed into one of his pockets and he had slipped into a pair of black socks, Alastair returned to the living room, drink and shoes in hand. He made quick work of putting his shoes on before grabbing his keys and wallet and heading out the door.

Alastair had made good time getting ready and out of the door, which proved incredibly useful as he found himself slowly driving through a good deal of after-school traffic before pulling into Eliot’s school parking lot. There were a lot more cars then there had been that morning – one of the few perks of having arrived so nearly late that morning – and Alastair had to go around twice before finding a small parking spot at the very back of the lot between two rather large cars that he carefully nosed between. It was a bit of a tight squeeze, but as long as neither of the parents around him were complete jerks and slammed their doors into his car, it would be fine.

Mindful as always of the promise he’d made to be at the door at exactly two o’clock, Alastair walked swiftly into the school. There was already a small group of parents lounging around outside the still-closed classroom door. Most of them were lazily flicking through their phones, a choice Alastair found completely respectable and sensible, but a few of them were conversing with each other in bright, bubbly voices. At least one of the mothers, several years older than Alastair with carefully curled auburn hair and an immaculate outfit, seemed to be watching approaching parents with eagle-eyed scrutiny. She made eye contact with Alastair and he barely resisted scrunching his face into a rude expression, instead settling for raising a single eyebrow at her as he came to a stop next to a man covertly watching videos on his phone. She looked away first, with an almost inaudible huff and Alastair basked in a moment of pure, petty satisfaction.

If Alastair was a dishonest person, he would claim that he didn’t judge people on their appearance or even first impressions. But he was not a dishonest person and would freely admit, if anyone dared ask, that he absolutely judged people on how they acted in first impressions. He was not necessarily the type to think someone was slovenly because they had flyaway hairs or were dressed too casually or frumpily for his taste, but he absolutely could pick out the type of people to avoid. At a glance, Alastair could almost always tell what type of person was most likely to cause a scene for a poor underpaid worker, who was just one drink shy of saying something racist or misogynistic at the office welcoming party, and – most usefully in this case, he absolutely, without fail, knew what kind of parents were just biting at the chance to cast judgment on their fellow guardians and their children. And that woman, who was currently giving a rather impressive side-eye to the latest woman to join their wait clad in black capri leggings and an oversized jumper, was absolutely that sort. Alastair hated her on sight on sheer principle.

To distract himself from the woman who was undoubtedly going to become the bane of his existence this school year, Alastair pulled out his phone and discreetly checked the time, ignoring several messages that must have come in while he was sleeping that he had yet to check. It was nearly two, which meant at any minute the door would open to release a wave of tiny humans all clamoring for their parents or guardians. Alastair couldn’t deny that he was excited to see Eliot and ask how his day had gone. He hadn’t gotten anything he meant to do done but, depending on how tired his little brother was, they could perhaps swing by the grocery store for a few of the things he knew they were out of before stopping for celebratory ice cream at their favorite shop. First day of real school really was a huge achievement, after all.

Plus, if he ate ice cream then he could honestly tell Cordelia that he’d eaten lunch. As long as she didn’t ask _what_ he had, it would be fine. Probably.

Alastair slipped his phone back into his pocket just in time for the door to open. Children clambered out of the room accompanied by a racket of noise that belied their small stature as they ran gleefully towards waiting parents or cheerfully said goodbye to their new friends. It took a moment for Alastair to spot Eliot – he was one of the last to leave the room, bouncing on his heels next to a small girl with dark pigtails. His face split into a bright smile as he caught sight of his older brother and he broke stride with the little girl to rush at Alastair.

“Alastair, Alastair, Alastair!” He chanted, stopping just short of running into Alastair’s knees.

“Eliot, Eliot, Eliot,” Alastair parroted with a small smile of his own, bending down to offer his brother a short hug. “I take it you had fun?”

“It was great!” Eliot cheered, wiggling out of his brother’s arns with all the finesse of an overexcited child. “Mr. Lightwood’s the _best_! He taught us how to make houses!”

“Oh he did?” Alastair asked and was rewarded with an emphatic nod from Eliot.

“Yeah!” He said and pulled his backpack, which he had flung over one of his shoulders, to his front. It was only half closed as he’d evidently decided to try and shove his dinosaur lunch box into it even though it was obviously too big but the little boy paid no mind to that fact, instead choosing to shove one his little hands into it in search for whatever house Mr. Lightwood had taught him to make. “See!” He exclaimed, proudly pulling out his hand and presenting Alastair with a vaguely house shaped blob of glue and popsicle sticks, all painted in rather vibrant shades of pink and orange. “It’s my house!”

“It’s a fantastic house,” Alastair told him dutifully. Eliot’s smile grew somehow brighter and he shoved his house into Alastair’s hand. Alastair, very well used to his brother’s antics, obediently lifted the house up for a closer inspection. It had three sides that were more or less standing up although there was at least one precariously loose popsicle stick threatening to come off on the right side but the fourth “side” was obviously meant to be the entrance and Eliot had left it completely open. It was held upright by a remarkably sturdy roof, although there were a few wide gaps between the popsicle sticks and the first two didn’t quite meet up right. Eliot had evidently decided to spice up the interior because Alastair could see copious amounts of gold and silver glitter glue decorating the inside of the popsicle walls and even what looked like two black stick figures painted onto the back wall as though they were living in the house.

“Mr. Lightwood said we could add our families, if we like!” Eliot told him, reaching up to take his house back and pointing to the little figures. “So I painted us! That’s me!” He pointed towards the smaller figure, “and that’s you!” He pointed to the larger. “I was going to add Cordelia and James too, but I didn’t have room. Mr. Lightwood said that was okay though and he gave me a piece of paper so I could draw all of us!” With these words, Eliot turned to fumbling through his backpack once more before pulling out a slightly crumbled piece of white construction paper on which four large stick figures were drawn in bright crayon. There weren’t many discerning features between the four figures except for their hair and the fact that the mini-Eliot figure was so much smaller than the other three but it still made Alastair smile fondly. The fact that Eliot had been worried enough about including his whole family that he had ended up drawing a separate picture was ridiculously cute.

“You did well, El.” Alastair told him, reaching down to gently pluck the picture out of his brother’s hand as though to get a closer look. “What else did you do today?”

"Mr. Lightwood taught us some songs! One was about counting in _Spanish_!” Eliot said the word reverently, as though he could think of nothing better than learning to count in Spanish.

“That’s a very useful skill,” Alastair told him, straightening up and handing Eliot his picture back for safekeeping. “Maybe you can sing it for me when we get home,” he added and Eliot grinned excitedly. “I just want to speak to Mr. Lightwood and then we’ll go.” Alastair looked away as he spoke; he had hoped that most of the parents would have cleared out, making it easy to tell which adult was Eliot’s new teacher, but there were many adults still milling about and none of the men particularly looked like a schoolteacher. “Which one is he?” He asked his brother.

"That one right there!” Eliot said, a tad louder than Alastair would have preferred, as he pointed towards a small group of adults and children standing right at the door. Alastair followed his brother’s finger, inwardly making a note to remind Eliot to be more discreet in public, and barely kept his shock from showing on his face when he caught sight of Mr. Lightwood.

When Alastair had pictured Eliot’s Year One teacher, he had imagined a kindly looking middle-aged man of average build who probably had a taste for bright sweaters and tan trousers. A Professor Lupin looking man, or perhaps a young Mr. Rogers. Mr. Lightwood, however, did not look like the type of man to loudly announce he was feeding the fish to reassure the fears of a blind girl or invite a troubled youth in for some tea and useful advice. He was outrageously tall for one, easily towering over the small group around him, his head ridiculously close to the top of the door frame he stood in, with the thick build to match. For another, he seemed incredibly young, surely no older than Alastair was, and although he looked kindly enough for a schoolteacher, his tousled medium brown hair and strong jaw made him easily one of the most attractive teachers Alastair had ever seen.

Apparently feeling Alastair’s incredulous gaze on him – or perhaps having heard Eliot’s rather loud declaration – Mr. Lightwood glanced up from where he had been politely engaged in conversation with the rude mother Alastair had noted earlier and smiled softly in greeting. Alastair immediately schooled his face into a polite but indifferent expression, inwardly wondering who in their right mind would hire such an attractive man to teach at a _primary school_. Qualified to handle children though Mr. Lightwood probably was, there was no way he was prepared to handle the many bored mothers and fathers who would undoubtedly try to flirt their way into his pants.

Alastair included, if his dry spell continued the way it was going. Whatever god or spirit who thought it was a good idea to make his baby brother’s new teacher _exactly_ Alastair’s type was surely a pernicious bastard. Or perhaps this was the universe’s punishment for his last failed relationship. Some divine retribution for dating a nearly married man, although Alastair had certainly not known that fact about him when he’d answered his direct message. And that had been over a year ago, now, certainly he wouldn’t be punished for that _now_?

Pushing away all inappropriate thoughts from his mind to dwell over later, Alastair offered his hand to Eliot and then marched both of them over to the small group. Stupidly attractive or not, Alastair still wanted to introduce himself to Eliot’s teacher. He could absolutely control himself for that.

Even if Mr. Lightwood looked even more ridiculously handsome up close as he gently bid a goodbye to the other parents before smiling down at Alastair in a silent greeting, his hazel eyes – of course they had to be hazel, Alastair’s favorite eye color because this was obviously hell – shining brightly. “Hello,” Dear God, even his voice was attractive, smooth and deep. “You must be Eliot’s brother?” Mr. Lightwood held out a hand as he spoke and Alastair dropped Eliot’s to take it, grateful that he wasn’t acting a fool even as his thoughts continued to swirl around in inappropriate waters.

Mr. Lightwood’s hand was pleasantly warm and as massive as the rest of him, easily dwarfing Alastair’s own as they shook firmly. Alastair had always liked a bigger man but he never thought he would enjoy being literally towered over by one – too much of a physical power imbalance, he’d always thought and there had never been very many men tall enough to actually _tower_ over him to contradict that opinion. Mr. Lightwood, however, was fast changing his mind about that specific idea because, even with the massive height difference, he did nothing to make Alastair feel particularly small like the few other ridiculously tall men he'd met had tried and there were certain advantages to that height Alastair couldn’t deny.

But _now_ was not the time for those particular thoughts.

"Yes, Alastair Carstairs.” He introduced himself primly, inwardly shaking his head to disperse the rest of his improper thoughts. He was incredibly glad Mr. Lightwood had evidently done his research about the students and hadn’t assumed Alastair was Eliot’s father. That had happened at Eliot’s preschool and it had been a rather awkward first few weeks after he had corrected them.

“Thomas Lightwood,” Mr. Lightwood responded genially as they dropped each other’s hands. “I just started here,” he added, unprompted. Some of Alastair’s surprise at the easy admission must have shown on his face, because the taller man flushed slightly and raised his hand to rub almost self consciously against the back of his neck. “I mean, I just started teaching. Not that you asked.” He was rambling a little now, and even that was ridiculously cute, if unexpected. It wasn’t often, in Alastair’s experience, that men who looked like Mr. Lightwood were terribly self-conscious and it seemed an odd albeit endearing quality in a teacher. 

“Well, I don’t think anyone would have guessed that, if you hadn’t shared,” Alastair responded after a moment, although he didn’t really know if that was quite true. “Eliot seemed quite taken with you,” he added, gesturing down to his little brother who was standing quietly beside him and fiddling with something inside his backpack. At his name, the little boy looked up and offered a bright smile to both men above him before turning back to whatever had caught his attention. Eliot was a talkative boy most of the time, but he didn’t generally find “adult conversation” interesting enough to pay much attention to. A trait that Alastair hoped he would keep for at least a few more years. He really did like not having to worry too much about guarding his tongue when Eliot was around.

“I’m glad. Eliot made quite the impression too.” Mr. Lightwood responded easily glancing down at the little boy with a gentle smile. “He’s really quite a good child. Did he tell you he offered to be the one to hand out the art supplies this week?”

"He didn’t,” Alastair lightly tugged at his brother’s hand to get his attention. Eliot looked back up questioningly, further prove that he really had been drowning out the adults’ conversation. “You didn’t tell me that you helped Mr. Lightwood pass out things? That was really nice of you.” Eliot was a very nice boy, so it didn’t really surprise Alastair. He got it from Cordelia.

Eliot seemed lost for a moment, as though he’d only been half listening, and then he nodded. “I was up close because that’s where Maisie wanted to sit, so it was easy for me to help.” It was simple logic, the kind small children often excelled at and Alastair couldn’t help but smile at Eliot even as the little boy returned to playing in his backpack.

“A very good child,” Mr. Lightwood repeated, a smile of his own on his face. “He must get it from you,” Alastair couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at that. He could, of course, have been reading an awful lot into the conversation but Mr. Lightwood’s words sounded rather _flirtatious._ The teacher must have realized how his statement had come out because there was a sudden pinkness to his cheeks as he made eye contact with Alastair and he hastened to add, “I just meant – you know, children learn good behaviors from the adults around them and you seem to be teaching him right.” He cleared his throat slightly after his words and his hand was rubbing at the back of his neck once more. Alastair couldn’t help but grin a little – he never thought he had a thing for self-conscious men but Mr. Lightwood seemed bent on changing his mind on a whole slew of opinions.

“I’m flattered you think so,” Alastair told him, a smile still tugging at his lips. Mr. Lightwood’s blush seemed to grow even deeper before he quickly grasped for some way to change their conversation.

“So, is there anything I can help you with? It seems like a lot of parents and guardians had questions about their children or how the class was structured today. I’m happy to answer anything that I can.” Alastair was fairly certain that a lot of those parents had ulterior motives for wanting to speak with Mr. Lightwood but he decided to leave that unsaid. He was pretty sure Mr. Lightwood would have a coronary if he knew why so many parents had been cornering him before and after school.

Biting back a slew of suggestive comments to Mr. Lightwood’s question – he would be professional with Eliot’s teacher even if it killed him – Alastair answered honestly, “I had a few things about Eliot to discuss with you.” Mr. Lightwood seemed to straighten up slightly at his words, adopting a more business-like air although he didn’t quite lose his friendliness.

“Of course,” he said, as a cue for Alastair to go on.

“I’ve already talked with administration about this, and I sent all the paperwork over to them,” Alastair began, “I should be here to pick Eliot up Monday through Thursday,” he had already cleared it with the office that he could take a late lunch for the specific purpose of being able to pick Eliot up at two o’clock and drop him off at his usual day babysitters, James’s parents Will and Tessa Herondale. After several years of this setup, Alastair still wasn’t quite sure why Cordelia’s fiance’s parents were so eager to help, other than the fact that they were once close with an older cousin of his, but they were friendly, trustworthy, and absolutely doted over Eliot so he never found it in him much to question it. “But on Friday, our sister will do it. I’ve already had her authorized to pick him up but I wanted to make sure you knew as well.” On Fridays, his office had meetings that he couldn’t get out of no matter how hard he tried and so Cordelia had volunteered to move her days off around set up a special sibling bonding day with Eliot.

“Oh yes,” Mr. Lightwood responded, nodding slightly. “I was told by one of the school’s receptionists, Ms. Lovett. Cordelia is your sister’s name, right?”

Alastair nodded, rather surprised that the man had remembered that. Self-conscious or not, it was obvious that Mr. Lightwood wasn’t just good with the handling children portion of his job. “Yes. Sometimes there might be someone else, like her fiancé or a family friend, but I was told that I would only need to send a signed note or call if that was the case?”

"Yes, that’s true.” Mr. Lightwood said. “Personally, I prefer a video call over notes for safety reasons but it’s school policy to accept either.” Alastair filed away that information for later. It was a logical preference and he would try his best to make sure he could call in for a minute on those days. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?” Mr. Lightwood added, after a half moment’s silence.

“No,” Alastair answered after a few seconds’ thought. “Not at the moment. It was good to meet you, Mr. Lightwood,” he held out his hand for a final shake and Mr. Lightwood immediately took it.

“You as well, Mr. Carstairs.” It was oddly hard to drop his hand from Mr. Lightwood’s, but Alastair had behaved himself well so far and he wasn’t about to make a fool of himself at the very end. He let go right before it would have been awkward and with one more smile over his shoulder and a squeaked goodbye from Eliot, Alastair took his little brother’s hand and turned away from the taller man.

“Did you like him?” Eliot asked him, his little voice carrying far too much for Alastair’s liking. They were not nearly far away enough that Mr. Lightwood couldn’t hear them.

"He seems a very good teacher,” Alastair responded in as quiet of a voice as he could while ensuring Eliot could still hear him. Eliot, oblivious as all little children were, cheered loudly.

“I told you! He’s the _best_!” Behind them, Alastair was pretty sure he could hear Mr. Lightwood bite back what sounded suspiciously like a chuckle but didn’t turn around to confirm. Instead, he led Eliot out of the school, wondering vaguely about how much ice cream would be needed to bribe Eliot to keep his voice down.

He had a feeling such a bribe would become very useful in the following school year.


	2. Chapter 2

Alastair would have liked another chance to speak with the charming Mr. Lightwood, but between needing to head to his own work in the morning and only having a forty minute lunch break in the afternoon as well as the sizable swarm of parents – mainly single mothers and bored looking wives now, Alastair had noticed with no small amount of amusement – that surrounded Mr. Lightwood each time he’d seen him, Alastair had hardly the time to give him a greeting nod or small smile. It shouldn’t have bothered him – he had no idea if Mr. Lightwood was at all interested in men and even if he was, he was Eliot’s teacher and therefore completely off limits. Nothing could ever come of his attraction.

That of course, would not stop Alastair from complaining about it on a rare Friday night out, a full two weeks’ after school had started. Alastair was fantastic at complaining, he could do it for hours on end if he desired, and with a night to himself – Eliot was having a sleepover with Cordelia, James, Will and Tessa at the Herondale family home where he would undoubtedly be spoiled all night - a nice red wine in his hand and his friends Anna and Ariadne beside him, also equally tipsy, he could easily spend the entire night on bemoaning the ridiculous hotness that was Mr. Lightwood.

“Why couldn’t he be some old man with a bushy mustache?” Alastair said after a sizable drink from his glass. It was nearly empty now and he would have to go to the bar soon for a refill.

“I don’t know, babe.” Ariadne responded in a consoling tone Alastair was pretty sure was only halfway sincere. She swirled the straw in her own glass, mixing the vodka into the atrociously bright liquors at the bottom of her drink. Alastair wasn’t sure what the bright green cocktail was but he needed to steal a sip from her glass at one point. It looked delicious.

“Bad luck?” Anna suggested, her tone completely amused. “Perhaps it’s the universe finally getting you back for Charles?” She added, lifting her own glass to sip at the amber liquid inside. Alastair didn’t resist making a face at her over his wineglass.

“I thought we agreed not to discuss him?” He responded. Charles still left a sour taste in his mouth; it had been a horrible mistake to take up with the almost married man. Even if he hadn’t known the truth at the time, there had been several warning signs he’d slammed past to date him and it was undoubtedly one of his biggest regrets. Particularly when his then-fiancée Grace had shown up at his work to confront him.

He was not nearly drunk enough to allow himself to reflect on that, however, and he forcibly pushed it from his mind. “And besides, he was punishment enough. Thomas Lightwood is his own special hell, I think.” Alastair hadn’t thought he’d said anything particularly bad; he’d definitely said worse at any rate, and so he wasn’t quite ready for his statement to make Anna choke on her drink.

" _Who_?” She demanded, ignoring the worried look Ariadne had sent her as she slammed her glass back down on the little table between them.

“Thomas Lightwood?” Alastair repeated. “Eliot’s teacher and current bane of my existence?”

"Thomas Lightwood as in the one who teaches Year One at Primrose Hill Primary?” She demanded. Alastair was pretty sure he was missing something major now, but wine had made his mind a little foggy and he was unable to place exactly what the dawning look of realization and amusement on Ariadne’s face meant.

“That is Eliot’s school, so yes.” He replied, setting his wine glass back down. It was empty now, anyway.

“Thomas Lightwood is my _cousin.”_ Anna told him, amusement and horror warring equally in her tone. Alastair stared at her for a moment, the words refusing to make sense in his mind. He _knew_ Anna’s cousins; Cordelia was engaged to one and best friends with the other. Her aunt and uncle babysat Eliot on the regular. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t have missed the incredibly large form of Thomas Lightwood lurking around their family photos. Besides, Anna’s cousins were all Herondales, related on her mother’s side.

But that wasn’t quite true, he was realizing far too slowly with a dawning sense of horror. Anna had an aunt on her father’s side and an uncle too. Alastair had never met either of them – he was pretty sure the aunt was estranged from the whole family and the uncle lived abroad, maybe? He wasn’t certain but it was possible that one or both of them had children. And Lightwood wasn’t exactly a common surname, he’d even thought it a great coincidence when he’d first heard the name of Eliot’s teacher.

Obviously, he was an idiot.

Anna must have read the horror on his face correctly for she seemed to take pity on him. Or perhaps she wanted him to suffer more – that was more her style after all, because she took another sip of her whiskey and then began explaining. “He’s my uncle Gideon’s son. I’ve told you about him and his sisters. They used to live here in London but then they moved to Spain about ten years or so ago because of my uncle’s work. Thomas is the first to move back here. I’m pretty sure you’ve met him before and I’ve definitely talked about him.”

"I’m fairly certain I haven’t.” Alastair responded immediately, feeling the tiniest bit less of a fool. His own family had only settled permanently in London six years ago, when his mother had found out she was pregnant and his father had finally gone too far for even the family company to disregard. They had visited London several times before then, of course, but he hadn’t been close with Anna or even the Herondales, although they had been inordinately fond of both him and Cordelia. There was no way Alastair had met Thomas Lightwood – not only because the timelines didn’t match up but also because there would be no way, even in Alastair’s darkest teen years, that he would have forgotten someone who looked like _that_. He couldn’t deny that Anna had talked about him, however; he wasn’t always the best at paying attention to others’ extended families, particularly because he tried very hard not to think about his own.

“Oh, you definitely have.” Anna contradicted, her voice almost gleeful now. She was definitely trying to make him suffer, then. “Uncle Gideon and Aunt Sophie never miss the Herondale Christmas Party and normally they drag the cousins along too. Thomas’s missed the last few because he’s been busy with his schooling, and he doesn’t really like parties anyway, but he definitely went to all of them when we were younger.”

Alastair wracked his brain. The Herondale Christmas Parties were absolutely legendary and his mother and father had always received an invitation whenever they were in the country for the holiday, which his mother had always politely accepted, eager to maintain cordial but distant connections to the upper echelon in London. Alastair hadn’t gotten along well with James or his friends at the time, but his mother had always made him attend to watch over Cordelia while she carefully monitored how much Elias had to drink. He’d always gone the rounds enough to be polite and then made his way towards some quiet corner or room that he could hide in while Cordelia played various games with Lucie and the other children.

Alastair didn’t remember seeing Thomas Lightwood, surely someone of that stature would have been memorable?

But that wasn’t quite true, either. Alastair didn’t remember Thomas Lightwood but there was a boy - Alastair had only met him once when he was twelve and couldn’t even remember his name but he definitely existed. He had been a ridiculously small boy who looked more like a nine-year-old than the eleven he’d insisted he was, but he had the same coloring as Thomas did. He had been hiding in the music room when Alastair had slipped into it, writing things in a small notebook – songs, he’d admitted with a blush that Alastair had thought adorable at the time. Alastair had insisted on seeing them – practically bullied the younger boy to show him, if he was being honest – and when he had complimented the lyrics, the boy’s face had turned the brightest pink he’d ever seen.

They’d spent the entire night talking and laughing in that room, half-forgotten by the party raging below them. Alastair had learned that the boy was hiding because his older sisters were being overbearing just because he’d been getting over a bad cough and Alastair had confided in turn that he was hiding because his little sister and her friend had been gushing over some girl cartoon he’d had no interest in and he didn’t like anyone else at the party. He’d told the boy that he didn’t write music the way the boy did, but that he enjoyed playing the piano immensely and when the boy had shyly asked if Alastair could play something for him, his pale cheeks rosy again, he hadn’t even hesitated before slipping onto the bench of the Herondale piano and playing the most difficult piece he knew.

It had been a magical night, his favorite Christmas by far. Until, at least, Cordelia had come quietly into the room - she always knew were he was going to disappear to, just in case she needed his help – and said, with a trembling voice and wide eyes, that it was time to go home because father was unwell again.

Alastair had found out the next day, after being sat down by his somber faced mother, that his father had gotten so drunk that he’d destroyed a priceless first edition of Charles Dickens’ _A Christmas Carol_ that Will Herondale had brought out to read a passage from by spilling bourbon all across it and had then made a quiet spectacle of himself insisting for his keys from his wife when he was clearly not capable of driving. His mother thought she had managed to laugh off most of everyone’s concerns but the eagle-eyed, all-too-knowing glance Tessa Herondale had given her had alarmed her.

They had left London the very next day, to return to their father’s business, and they had not returned for six years. Alastair had never seen the boy again.

Until, apparently, now.

Because it was painfully obvious now, in this new light, that Thomas Lightwood was that boy.

Alastair’s first crush – for that was what the boy was, although it had taken him a few more years to fully realize what the fluttering swoop in his stomach had been whenever the other boy’s head had thrown back in a laugh, his warm hazel eyes shining with mirth and his cheeks rosy – was the exact same unattainable teacher he was currently anguishing over.

It really was a small world. And a cruel one.

“Oh fucking hell,” he cursed softly, but with feeling. Anna and Ariadne laughed. He grabbed at Ariadne’s acid green drink and took a large swill. “Oh fucking hell,” he repeated because it bore repeating.

The women laughed again because Alastair’s pain was apparently worth laughing at.

* * *

Alastair woke up ridiculously hung over the next day to the sound of people letting themselves into the apartment. He’d have been worried, perhaps, if he hadn’t been able to recognize Cordelia’s soft voice or Eliot’s excited chatter. Buoyed by the fact that there weren’t any would-be-murderers sneaking into his home and encouraged by the raging pounding in his head, Alastair turned over in his bed and grabbed one of his pillows to throw on top of his head to drown out his siblings.

He groaned audibly in response to a knocking on his door just a few moments later. Then he groaned even louder when the door opened anyway and pressed the pillow further onto his head in an attempt to drown out the loud excited shriek he knew would be coming from Eliot any minute. But no shrill scream came to pound its way into Alastair’s head; instead, soft footsteps entered his bedroom and there was the small clink of a glass being placed on his nightstand.

“I convinced Eliot to put his stuff away before coming in here,” Cordelia whispered, wry amusement clear in her voice. “I imagine that gives you approximately five minutes to swallow these pills and get some water down before he comes swooping in,” she continued and Alastair groaned again before throwing the pillow of his head. She was right but that didn’t mean he couldn’t hate her for it. “Long night?” She asked, voice still considerably low as Alastair gingerly sat up, wincing as his head loudly protested the movement. There was a bit of surprise in her voice – Alastair didn’t often drink so much that he was actually drunk and almost never to the point that he was hungover, for very obvious reasons. The last time he’d been so drunk was when they’d celebrated his graduation together and Cordelia had at least felt his pain then.

“I’m never going out with Anna again. She’s a devil.” Alastair grabbed the pills from his sister’s hand as he carefully probed at his memories from the night before. The realization about Mr. Lightwood had hit him hard and when Anna had announced she was going to drink until “the soliloquies about how much you want to sleep with my cousin are gone from my memory completely,” Alastair had emphatically decided to join her.

He had forgotten that Anna had the ungodly skill of drinking anyone under the table and while he had been stumbling slightly on his feet and fumbling with his phone to call for a ride to take them all home, Anna had the audacity to look completely composed despite drinking even more than he had.

What a monster. He hoped her head was pounding fiercely.

Alastair swallowed the pills with a big drink of water, then turned to his sister who was watching him with an amused expression. “Thank you,” he told her lowly, hating how scratchy his voice sounded even to his own ears.

"You’re welcome,” she told him, still pitching her voice low. “I hope it helps.”

“I’d rather have something fried and disgusting, but it will do.” Alastair responded honestly, sliding his feet onto the floor and mentally preparing himself. Eliot would be coming any minute through that open door and he was too young yet to realize when he should keep his voice down. The last time Alastair had been hungover, the Herondales had already agreed to taking Eliot for the whole day and he hadn’t needed to worry about it. He would not be that lucky this time.

“Maybe we can get you something suitably fried while we are out.” Cordelia responded and Alastair turned quickly towards her, wincing as his head protested the sharp movement. “You promised Eliot a visit to the Museum with Alexander to celebrate the start of school.” She added at his confused expression. Alastair closed his eyes and inwardly cursed at his sister’s words. He had indeed promised Eliot that visit, after his first day of school, and had told him he could invite whomever he wanted to come with. Predictably, Eliot had immediately asked Anna and Ariadne to bring Alexander and had also begged Cordelia to come along with James. They had meant to go last week but something at Anna’s work had come up and she’d had to cancel. Eliot had not wanted to go without her or Alexander so they had postponed for this weekend. In the excess drinking debacle of the night before, Alastair had completely forgotten.

“-I’ve already spoken with Anna and we’re supposed to meet for breakfast in an hour.” Cordelia was still speaking, this time with a bit of uncertainty in her voice. “But I suppose if you’re really not up for it, I can just take him.” She added and at that Alastair’s eyes shot open again.

“Absolutely not. He wanted us both there. I’m not going to abandon him just because I behaved like a uni student last night.” There were too many disappointed memories of his father doing the exact same thing to him growing up and just as many times when he had to lie to Cordelia about their father’s absence at her events for him to ever be comfortable doing the same to Eliot. “I just need a quick shower.” He stood up, resolutely ignoring the pounding in his head. Cordelia was watching him with an unreadable expression – undoubtedly caught in her own memories of their father for a moment – but then her face cleared and she smiled.

“I’ll distract Eliot so you get a few more minutes to yourself,” she told him before standing up and flouncing from the room. Just in time, it would seem, as Alastair heard the distinct sound of little feet pattering down the hall and the tell-tale squeak of Eliot stopped mid-run. Grateful that Cordelia was here to keep Eliot from bouncing in – he had not yet reached the age that he fully understood privacy and was just as likely to come barging in on Alastair mid-shower than not – Alastair quickly slipped into his bathroom, hopeful that a hot shower would help soothe his headache to a dull roar.

Mindful of time, Alastair didn’t dare dally in the shower and flew through his morning routine as quickly as his head would allow before dressing in a nice button-down and trousers. He might feel like absolute shit, but he didn’t have to let the general populace see that. The pain medication Cordelia had supplied to him worked quickly so that by the time he stepped out of his bedroom, fully dressed with his hair neatly styled and just a bit of cover-up to lessen the bags under his eyes, he felt nearly human. 

Eliot and Cordelia were in the living room, playing on the floor with several dolls and a rather complicated structure of building blocks. Eliot looked up from where he had been about to toss his doll down a “slide” which consisted of several thin blocks angled closely together and grinned happily. “Alastair! Are you ready?”

“Hello to you too, Eliot.” Alastair responded, walking over to get a closer look at their building. It consisted of several wobbly towers and a very sturdy central building with the slide sticking out the center. It was easy to see who had made what – especially when Eliot dropped his doll and the little slide crashed down with it.

“Oops,” the little boy said, looking at the mess and then up to Cordelia with slightly wide eyes. “I’m sorry!” He told her, but Cordelia, ever-patient, just smiled.

“That’s alright. We have to clean up before we go, anyway. You just made it easier.” And with that pronouncement, Cordelia pushed against the rest of the central building and let it come crashing down alongside the wobbly towers. Eliot laughed.

"It seems you’ve made a mess rather than clear one away,” Alastair told both his siblings, his voice wry. Eliot laughed again before jumping up and running over to the shelves where several cloth toy totes neatly sat.

“It’s easier this way!” Eliot declared as he picked up one of the bins and brought it over to the mess of wooden blocks. “See!” He added as he reached down and grabbed up a big pile of blocks and threw them into the box. 

“Yeah, Alastair.” Cordelia said, grinning mischievously as she grabbed up her own pile and joined with Eliot in the clean-up. “It’s much easier!”

“I stand oh so corrected,” Alastair droned, watching his younger siblings throw the blocks into the tote with almost gleeful abandon. It always made him happy, to see Cordelia engage in little hijinks with Eliot. He had worried what it would mean for Eliot, to have his older siblings act more like parents than siblings but Cordelia had managed to strike a good balance between guardian and sister, sometimes lecturing Eliot on his mischief and sometimes getting right on in it with him.

It was heartwarming, even if his still lowly throbbing head had to pay the price with every clatter of blocks into the tote.

Once every block had been cleared away and both of the dolls returned to their homes, Alastair helped Eliot tie his shoes while Cordelia collected a few snacks and filled up several water bottles to take with them.

"Where are we meeting for breakfast?” Alastair called as Eliot hopped up with his shoes firmly secured.

“Anna wanted to go to some little restaurant on Kennington? She said you’d know the one,” Cordelia responded, emerging from the kitchen with her bag bulging oddly. Alastair knew instantly what one she was referring to. It was a little, slightly dingy place wedged between several large bustling buildings. Alastair couldn’t remember the name – wasn’t sure he’d ever actually learned it, really - but it was Anna’s favorite place to go after a night of light debauchery and it had some great albeit incredibly unhealthy food. It was the perfect place, really. Although he wasn’t sure how he felt taking Eliot to the very same restaurant that Anna had once regaled her pre-Ariadne conquests to him in vivid detail.

Alastair decided not to dwell on that too much as he bent down to put on his own shoes, gently nudging a bouncing Eliot out of the way of them. “I know the place,” he responded as Cordelia placed her bag down and bent to grab her own shoes, neatly lined up among the rest near the door.

“Are you ready?” Eliot asked the moment both Cordelia and Alastair had gotten their shoes on. Alastair was briefly tempted to pretend he’d forgotten something in his bedroom but they were already running a bit on the late side and Eliot looked as though he was practically going to explode from his excitement.

“Yes, yes.” Alastair told him, swiping up his keys and wallet from the sideboard and quickly patting his pocket to make sure his phone was there. “Did you go to the bathroom?” Alastair asked and Eliot nodded immediately. “Are you sure?” Alastair pressed; it wasn’t a particularly long drive to the restaurant but he didn’t want Eliot to start crying out halfway through that he needed to use the restroom.

Eliot pursed his lips before turning and sprinting down the hall. Alastair had to bite back a rebuke about shoes in the house as Eliot careened into the bathroom. Eliot was normally quite good about it and Alastair really didn’t want to have to retie them, anyway. “Don’t leave without me!” Eliot called before slamming the bathroom door loudly.

“You better hurry up then!” Alastair retorted immediately. Alastair would, of course, never leave his brother in the apartment alone but Eliot hadn’t quite figured out how empty Alastair’s promises to leave without him were and it was a great bargaining tool whenever the little boy decided to drag his feet overmuch.

“You really need to stop threatening to do that,” Cordelia rebuked softly as she rummaged through her purse, making sure she had everything as they waited for Eliot to return.

“Nonsense. Sometimes it’s the only way to get him out the door on time.” Alastair answered immediately. Cordelia looked briefly as though she was going to respond – probably to say something about how lying to children was a surefire way to create trust issues or something of a similar sort – but was preemptively interrupted by the sound of a toilet flushing and the loud pitter-patter of a running child.

“Did you wash your hands?” Alastair asked the moment he could see Eliot emerging from the hall. His question was met with a loud groan as Eliot immediately pivoted and ran back down the hall.

“There’s no time!” The little boy whined, prompting a giggle from Cordelia and an eyeroll from Alastair.

“There’s always time for hygiene!” Alastair responded and was grateful when the response to his words was the sound of rushing water as Eliot turned on the tap. Far too soon for Alastair’s liking, Eliot was racing back down the hall, wiping his wet hands on his khaki shorts. Deciding not to push the matter and inwardly hoping the little miscreant had at least used soap, Alastair gestured to the door and Eliot cheered as he raced to it. He unlocked the door and then held it open for his two older siblings, beaming and bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“Thank you,” Cordelia said with a smile as she passed him. Alastair had taken it upon himself to teach as many good manners into Eliot as their mother had for both her older children and although Cordelia was far less rigidly polite than Alastair was or their mother had been, she still always made a show of acknowledging and encouraging the behaviors.

"Thank you,” Alastair told his little brother as he gently shooed him from the door so he could close and lock it securely. Eliot went along bouncing down the hall, Cordelia trailing behind closely. Alastair double checked the door before turning to follow behind them at a more sedate pace. His head was still lowly throbbing and it was going to be a long enough day without forcing himself to move at his brother’s pace the entire time.

Eliot practically vibrated throughout the entire ride on the elevator and it was only Alastair demanding his hand as soon as the doors opened that kept him from racing out of the lobby past Alfie. Alastair winced as the midmorning light hit his eyes. London had no reason for being this bright in September but apparently the universe had not punished him enough because it was positively beating down onto him in a most unseasonable way.

“Do you want me to drive?” Cordelia murmured as they made their way to his car quickly. Alastair thought about it for a moment as he helped Eliot into his booster seat. His absolute hatred of being in the car with someone else driving warred with the dull throb behind his eyes as he made sure Eliot was fully buckled before closing his door. The slam of the door reverberating in his head made the decision for him – if he could hardly handle a loud noise without wanting to grimace, he should not be driving when there was someone else perfectly capable.

“Don’t wreck my car,” he finally answered, lightly tossing Cordelia the car keys before sliding into the passenger seat. Just because he knew he was being responsible didn’t mean he had to _like_ it.

“I have never even come close to wrecking a car,” Cordelia answered primly as she sat down next to him.

“You also rarely drive,” Alastair responded immediately, reaching over to pull out a spare pair of sunglasses he always kept by the driver’s seat. Cordelia huffed but apparently decided it wasn’t worth arguing her case. Probably because, as much as she wanted to, there wasn’t any truthful way to deny what Alastair had said. Cordelia always used the Underground to get to work and around London, preferring it over chancing the city traffic, and generally only drove for trips outside the city.

Despite his criticisms, Cordelia smoothly made her way out of the parking garage and, with Alastair giving directions every few minutes and Eliot flipping through one of the picture books stashed in the back seat pocket for him, they made it to the small restaurant in good time. As soon as Cordelia had pulled the car into the first parking spot she could find, Eliot was pulling his seatbelt off and jumping out of his seat in excitement.

"Put your book back,” Alastair reminded him as he slid out from the car and came to open Eliot’s door. Eliot obediently put his book – a Roald Dahl picture dictionary Will Herondale had gotten him for Christmas that he somehow adored – back into the seat pocket before jumping out of the car and nearly landing on Alastair’s foot.

“Sorry!” He said, quickly stepping back and taking Alastair’s proffered hand.

“That’s alright,” Alastair answered absently, tucking his fingers around Eliot’s and holding onto him firmly as they waited for Cordelia to come around to them. She had somehow managed to find a good spot close to the restaurant but street parking with Eliot made Alastair unduly nervous. It did not take much to send the excitable boy off and he could just see him running into the street without a single thought to chase after some bird or because he saw a coin. He’d never had, of course, but Alastair had also very rarely given him free reign near a street and wasn’t about to start now.

Cordelia came around the car, her bag noticeably slimmer. “I figured we’d leave the snacks and the waters in the car,” she said in response to Alastair’s questioning look. “I’d feel strange bringing them into the restaurant.”

“Fair enough,” Alastair responded as they began to make their way down the street past several shops already bustling with Saturday customers. He himself would have no qualms bringing whatever was in his bag into a restaurant but he had also spent the first few years’ of Eliot’s life constantly toting around a diaper bag filled to the brim with all sorts of baby supplies and food and had shed most of his self-consciousness about it. Cordelia had done her fair share of carting around baby supplies as well, but it hadn’t taken away any of her desire to be a stickler for rules.

The rest of their group must have decided to travel together because James, Ariadne, Anna, and Alexander were already seated at a table in the back of the tiny restaurant when Cordelia, Alastair, and Eliot walked in. Alastair let Eliot drop his hand and watched as he ran over to the table, loudly greeting all of them. Alastair discreetly slid off his sunglasses and passed them to Cordelia to slip into her bag before they both walked over at a much more sedate pace. Alastair was sure Anna would be able to tell in a moment how hungover he was, but there was no reason to make the revelation any easier for her.

“So you’re alive,” Anna said the moment Alastair and Cordelia were close enough to the table to hear her, a smirk tugging at the edge of her lips. Alastair glowered at her as he slid into the empty seat next to the one Eliot had quickly clambered to claim.

“Why wouldn’t he be?” James, ever polite, had gotten up to pull the empty chair next to him out for Cordelia – Alastair would have found the action dreadfully pretentious at best from anyone else but after years of knowing the Herondale family he had come to realize that the men in that family were just like _that_ – but he turned his head to stare at his cousin curiously as Cordelia sat down.

Alastair glared even harder at Anna, silently daring her to say anything. Anna met his glare with a full-blown smirk and might have blurted the whole dreadful affair out for everyone to hear if the server hadn’t come at that very moment with two new menus for Cordelia and Alastair and a coloring page with crayons for Eliot.

“Hello!” The woman, plump and cherry-cheeked with a neat bun of honey-blonde hair, smiled warmly as she handed out the menus. “Would you like anything to drink?”

“Coffee, please.” Alastair answered without hesitation, neatly ignoring the quiet snicker from Anna. “And a water.” He turned towards Eliot as the others began putting in their own drink requests. “What would you like?” He asked, his voice quiet. Eliot didn’t like speaking to servers, an odd trait for such a friendly child. He had no qualms running up to random adults at parks – much to Alastair’s constant concern – but he always seemed to freeze when put on the spot at restaurants, staring wide-eyed and open mouthed whenever a server tried to interact with him.

Eliot thought for a moment, one of his new crayons dangerously close to his mouth. “Can I have orange juice?” He asked, his little voice just as quiet as Alastair’s had been. Alastair nodded and then looked back up just in time for the server to finish writing down Alexander’s – he had none of the qualms that Eliot did about speaking with servers – request for apple juice.

“Can he get an orange juice, please?” Alastair asked when her eyes landed on him, Eliot shyly peeking his head around his shoulder at the server. Her smile was all matronly warmth as she nodded.

"Of course. I’ll be right back with those,” and then she left, trailed by a chorus of polite gratitude.

“So, why wouldn’t Alastair be alive?” James repeated the moment the server was out of earshot because of course he hadn’t forgotten about it.

It was Ariadne who answered, shooting a glance at Alastair that was half-apologetic, half-amused. “We went out last night. He had a bit more than usual.”

“He’s hungover as hell, Jamie.” Anna added, her tone implying that it should have been obvious. James blinked once, looking momentarily confused. He’d always been a bit slow on the uptake, Alastair thought only a bit unfairly.

"Be mindful what you say,” Alastair told Anna reproachfully, gesturing down to Eliot and Alexander who were both in the midst of coloring Eliot’s page. Alexander was at that odd stage where he insisted that he was too old for trivial things like free coloring pages at restaurants but still had no qualms actually playing with them and Eliot never minded sharing with the older boy, so it was an agreeable situation all the way around.

"They aren’t paying attention,” Anna scoffed. Her words were perfectly true but Alastair hardly cared. Anna wasn’t the one who would have to answer the awkward questions from Eliot when the boy inevitably picked up an odd word or two. Truly, for a child with a complete lack of interest in "adult" conversation he had a natural gift for hearing things he shouldn't have and Alastair already had to field several less-than-ideal conversations with Eliot in the past. 

“Why were you… partaking so much?” James’s question neatly cut into the conversation just in time to prevent the rude retort Alastair had on the tip of his tongue. It was a fair enough question – everyone around him knew Alastair didn’t drink in excess all that often – but it brought up some less than desirable memories from the night before. Namely about one Mr. Lightwood, Alastair’s half-forgotten first crush and Eliot’s current ridiculously attractive primary teacher.

"He learned something very interesting about Eliot’s teacher.” Anna said, her mouth quirked into a mischievous smirk. Evidently all of her shock from the night before had worn away in favor of sheer amusement.

“What did you learn? He’s not some creep or anything, is he?” James asked, an edge of concern in his voice. Anna had the audacity to outright laugh at that and Alastair barely resisted the urge to try and aim a kick at her underneath the table.

“What’s a creep?” Alastair nearly cursed when he heard Eliot’s tiny voice and James’s eyes widened as Alastair leveled a truly impressive glare at him before turning down to look at his brother. Eliot had paused in his coloring to look up at his brother, big brown eyes wide and curious. Alexander too, seemed suddenly vested in the conversation, his hand paused mid-drawing as he looked up at Alastair, waiting for an answer.

"A creep is someone who does inappropriate things that other people don’t like,” Alastair answered reluctantly after it became clear no one else was going to offer the information. Alexander seemed satisfied as he shrugged and dropped his gaze back to his drawing. Eliot, however, frowned.

“What’s ‘inappropriate’?” He asked. Alastair was going to murder everyone else at this table once he was done explaining.

“Inappropriate means doing something that’s not okay in a specific moment. It could be like trying to hug someone after they say they don’t want a hug.” He explained. Eliot seemed lost in thought for a moment, his crayon now resting lightly on his lips. He used to suck his thumb and although he had mostly kicked the habit, his fingers and whatever might be held in them still often came rather close to his mouth whenever he wasn’t paying attention to them.

He seemed to come to some sort of understanding because the confusion cleared from his face and he turned in his chair to look at James. “Mr. Lightwood’s _not_ a creep.” He proclaimed solemnly with all the seriousness a child could muster. Alastair wanted to die, just a little. Instead, he compromised between his urge to disappear off the face of the earth with his urge to murder everyone else at the table by aiming a sharp jab at Anna when he saw she that she was smirking widely again. Her indignant expression was almost worth the embarrassment.

“Mr. Lightwood?” James echoed slowly. Alastair could see the exact moment that realization dawned on him because his golden eyes widened almost comically. “ _Thomas_?” He asked incredulously. Cordelia, who evidently recognized the name much faster than Alastair had, turned sharply to stare at her brother.

“You didn’t say his first name was Thomas!” She accused, which Alastair thought was unfair as he most definitely had mentioned the name “Mr. Lightwood” and how was he supposed to know everyone around him knew the man?

"I didn’t know you knew him,” Alastair responded smoothly. “I didn’t even remember him until Anna recognized the name last night. I only met him once.” Cordelia seemed to accept that with grace; it wasn’t like Alastair and her had hung around the same people much in their youth. Alastair hadn’t been the best of people and Cordelia’s friends had the unfortunate habit of being incredibly annoying. He still got into small arguments with a few of them, namely James’s best friend, Matthew Fairchild. Although in fairness, it was less Matthew that Alastair had a problem with now as it was his older brother.

But he didn’t need to think about that now. Thinking about Charles while hungover was nearly as bad as thinking about him drunk. Or sober. Or ever, really.

"But,” James still seemed confused. He was quite bright in some cases, and utterly daft in others. It was an odd mixture that Alastair loved to point out in certain situations. This was shaping out to be one of those situations. “Why would finding out it’s Thomas make you want to drink? You only met him once and Tom isn’t the type to be rude, so I can’t imagine it was a bad experience.”

“Oh, that’s because Alastair thinks Thomas is –“

“That’s enough!” Alastair cut in firmly, before Anna could finish her sentence. “I don’t think now is the time to talk about this,” he added with a pointed glance down at the boys. Alexander had returned to his drawing – it was shaping out to be some sort of furry animal although Alastair couldn’t tell what species exactly – and hadn’t been paying the slightest of attention but Eliot was quietly watching them with curious eyes. Alastair already had to worry about whether or not Eliot would go to school and tell Mr. Lightwood that his sister’s fiancé - who apparently knew Thomas well which begged the question on why Mr. Lightwood hadn’t said anything when he had mentioned Cordelia’s name because he surely must have known her if she knew him– had called him a creep. He really _would_ commit murder if he also had to worry about whether or not Eliot would tell his teacher that Alastair thought him stupidly attractive.

His murderous intent must have shown clear on his face because Anna let the subject finally die with one more smirk and the others – Ariadne, looking amused herself but content not to get involved, James, looking utterly bewildered as though unable to imagine any wrong done by his precious Tom, and Cordelia, looking as though she had an inkling as to what problem Alastair was having but unwilling to share it – all followed her lead. The server came back to them before any new conversation could pick up, her hands ladled with a heavy tray full of their drinks, and they passed them along to each other in near silence.

Ordering came next – Alastair ordered a full fry-up, carefully ignoring how Anna’s amusement seemed to grow at that even as she ordered the same. Eliot shyly asked Alastair for eggs with toast which his older brother dutifully relayed back to the server. The others had no problems requesting various dishes and by the time all their orders had been placed and the server had left again, all traces of their previous conversation seemed to have disappeared, much to Alastair’s relief. Conversation flowed through various topics as they waited for their foods – how the children were doing in school, how was wedding planning going for Cordelia and James, how work was going for everyone – before, as it inevitably does amongst them, they devolved into discussing the latest gossip. Alastair took to this with relish, although always mindful to make sure the group didn’t delve too far into the more illicit gossip – little ears were far too close to allow Anna’s gleeful account of catching her old boss Hypatia Vex with an intern too much detail. As long as it didn’t pertain to _him_ and his tragically nonexistent love life or anything related, Alastair _loved_ gossip.

By the time their food had come and been mostly eaten, they had exhausted nearly every topic of interest. On top of Hypatia Vex's latest tryst, Alastair had learned that Cordelia’s coworker had been caught sending rather unfortunate photographs to unwilling participants – to which the whole table agreed he needed to be fired immediately – and that some distant relative of James’s – a second cousin or something who apparently lived in Los Angeles that Alastair was fairly certain he hadn’t heard about but who even knew at this point – had gotten engaged to his boyfriend and all the British Herondales had been invited to the wedding. They were young, still at Uni, but that was the way with Herondales. Alastair was fairly certain that if Cordelia hadn’t made it clear when they first began dating that she would finish her schooling first, his sister would have been engaged at eighteen, just as James’s parents and grandparents both had.

The gossip was refreshing and entertaining and by the time they had paid their bill, Alastair was feeling much more relaxed both because the food had helped lighten his hangover even more so that it was just a dull, faint pounding in the back of his head and because his predicament with Mr. Lightwood appeared mostly forgotten.

Mostly, unfortunately, being the key word as Alastair was quick to find out when they had left the restaurant and regrouped at the museum. He had ended the conversation on the basis of the children, but with them occupied with the interactive playtime exhibit, it was far too easy for the adults to return to the topic.

It was James who brought it up as Alexander and Eliot were drawn in by an old black and white television show playing on one of the large screens. “So, what’s this about Thomas?” He had pitched his voice low but Alastair was still glad Anna and Ariadne had gone off to see how busy the next exhibit the boys wanted to visit was. He briefly considered simply not answering. But then he remembered how utterly stubborn both his sister and her fiancé were and how much Anna delighted in sharing information. It was better to just tell them both now before they heard it from somebody else or dragged it out of him.

“I made a bit of a spectacle of myself complaining about how attractive Eliot’s teacher was. Then Anna recognized the name and told me he was her cousin and that I met him once. We decided to commiserate my embarrassment and ending up drinking too much,” he explained, carefully leaving out the part where he’d realized Mr. Lightwood had been his first crush. Some things were better left private.

James and Cordelia, to both their credit, managed not to laugh outright but Alastair could see from the quirk of their lips that they were amused. “I wonder why he didn’t recognize your name,” James mused, apparently more than willing to gloss over the fact that Alastair found his little brother’s teacher attractive which Alastair deeply appreciated. “Or recognize Cordelia when she goes to pick up Eliot, for that matter.” He added with a frown.

“We’ve only met a few times since we were children,” Cordelia answered fairly. “Since he’s been on the continent. And each time I’ve gone to pick up Eliot, the teacher has always been surrounded by a large group of parents and I hadn’t a chance to speak with him. Or recognize him.” She added, frowning slightly.

"A bunch of the parents have a crush on him; it’s almost impossible to talk to him,” Alastair responded absently; Eliot and Alexander had evidently grown bored of the show they had been watching and had raced off to another screen.

“Speaking from experience?” Cordelia couldn’t help herself from saying and Alastair shot her an unamused glance as they walked on after the boys.

“Very funny.” He responded coolly. “But no, I can actually control myself in front of attractive people, thank you very much.”

“I still don’t see how you didn’t recognize him, Daisy,” James continued, far too used with bickering with his own younger sister to let theirs faze him. “Thomas isn’t exactly the “gets lost in a crowd” type.”

“No,” Cordelia answered. “But I’ve always been preoccupied with getting Eliot, so I didn’t pay that much attention. It’s not like I’ve had any reason to talk to the teacher, anyway.” As much as Alastair would have liked to partially blame Cordelia for not recognizing Mr. Lightwood and saving him the embarrassment of mooning over Anna’s cousin in front of her, he had to admit that was fair.

"Alright, fine. But Lightwood isn’t exactly a common name, is it? Neither of you thought that was worth noting?” James pressed. He seemed far more bothered by the fact that the Carstairs had failed to recognize Mr. Lightwood than anything else.

“Carstairs isn’t either and yet he didn’t recognize it.” Alastair shot back, risking a glance away from the boys to level James with an unimpressed stare. James conceded the point with a small nod.

"I suppose you are all equal idiots,” he announced after a moment’s thought, neatly ignoring the glare Alastair levelled at him and Cordelia’s affronted look and moving forward to bend down and watch the video with Alexander and Eliot.

"You’re marrying a complete ass,” Alastair told his sister matter-of-factly before stepping forward just in time for Eliot to excitedly turn towards him, already spouting off everything he had just seen in the old show.

* * *

Alastair was a grown man. He’d dealt with countless struggles throughout his life – a drunk, incompetent father, cruel children spouting off their parents’ hateful rhetoric like nursery rhymes, the death of his mother, impromptu _parenthood_. He’d attended uni classes with a sleeping infant wrapped around him and passed all his final exams with a screaming toddler on his hip. He worked a full-time job while being home for dinner almost every single night for Eliot and himself. He’d handled many difficult situations and come out on top almost every single time.

Which was why it was so ridiculously stupid that he was sitting in his car on Monday morning, Eliot in the backseat bouncing up and down in his booster seat impatiently, trying to find the courage to get out and face Mr. Lightwood.

It was silly. Figuring out that Thomas Lightwood was one of his best friend’s cousins was not that big of a deal. It didn’t change their professional relationship in any way and it wasn’t like they had any relationship apart from that. Realizing that Thomas Lightwood was the mysterious, songwriter boy from his childhood was mildly embarrassing but it wasn’t utterly mortifying. They had only met once and Mr. Lightwood probably didn’t even remember it.

And it wasn’t as though Anna or anyone else had given him any much grief about it once the initial shock had worn off. There had been a few joking comments throughout the rest of their outing together on Saturday but nothing malicious or overly inappropriate. It had been an enjoyable day really – Eliot and Alexander had grown bored with the Playtime exhibit shortly after the adults’ conversation about Mr. Lightwood and they had moved to the Victorian Street reenactment and Eliot had nearly gotten lost in his euphoria at seeing the old-timey toy shop. They had all gone together to get ice cream after and Eliot had been so tired once they had finally gotten home that he had consented to lay down and have a nap with Alastair with very little fuss. It had been a good day and Alastair had hardly thought about Mr. Lightwood for the rest of the weekend.

He hadn’t thought about him when Eliot had convinced him to help him make Cordelia’s recipe for lemon cakes to take to family dinner Sunday morning. He hadn’t thought about him while pulling the slightly burnt, uneven cakes out of the oven and he _definitely_ hadn’t thought about him while cleaning up the mess of powdered sugar and butter left behind after Eliot insisted on making homemade frosting. He had mercifully not come up when Alastair and Eliot had shown up at the Herondales, their slightly lumpy misshapen cakes in tow. And he hadn’t even made an appearance in Alastair’s thoughts when he kissed his brother good night and told him to get a good rest for school in the morning.

No, Mr. Lightwood had not preoccupied much of Alastair’s thoughts after talking to James and Cordelia but it certainly seemed as though the man was more than making up for lost time for the thought of seeing him at school when he dropped Eliot off had been the only thing on Alastair’s mind all morning. He’d showered and gotten ready for his workday with thoughts of the other man weighing heavily on his mind; he’d made Eliot some toast and forced himself to eat a piece with dread pooling in his stomach. Had helped his brother with his tie and finding his shoes – Eliot had somehow managed to kick one of his shoes under the couch and the other across the living room and under the dining table in the kitchen nook – with thoughts of the other man threatening to consume everything else.

It was ridiculous. Alastair was a _grown_ man, not some schoolchild dealing with their first crush. He could handle this. He was _going_ to handle this.

“Alastaaaaiiirrrrr-“ Eliot drew out his name, full on pouting now. They had been sitting parked in the car for a good few minutes and Eliot had lost all patience. They were probably another thirty seconds away from him switching from impatient to actually angry and Alastair would not wish an angry, pouty Eliot on anyone. His little brother may have gotten his kindness from Cordelia, but his ability to hold onto his anger and be grumpy the rest of the day was all Alastair. He had once pouted for an entire three days because Alastair had had the audacity to wash his favorite stuffed animal without asking first when he was three.

With the threat of a meltdown on the horizon, Alastair’s decision was made. “Sorry, El. I just had to send someone a message.” A complete lie, of course, but as Eliot’s booster seat was located directly behind the driver’s seat, which made it hard for his little brother to look over and see that Alastair didn’t even have his phone out, it wasn’t one his little brother was about to refute him on. “We can go now,” Alastair added, opening the car door and sliding out.

“Finally!” Eliot cheered as Alastair opened his door and he popped out, lunch bag already in hand and backpack slung over one shoulder.

“Thank you so much for your patience,” Alastair answered dryly, taking hold of his brother’s hand before he could go darting off across the parking lot to the school. Even with Alastair’s preoccupation and his delay in the car, they had arrived at the school a little earlier than usual and the lot was still half empty as they walked through it.

“I want to see the classroom!” Eliot told him, either blind to Alastair’s sarcasm or outright ignoring it. Now that he had gotten what he wanted, all traces of his impatience were gone and he was skipping alongside Alastair happily. “Mr. Lightwood said he was going to put all the paintings we made last week up on the walls!” Alastair hummed in absent-minded agreement. Eliot had told him last week that Mr. Lightwood had assigned each child a letter in the alphabet and had them paint an object or animal that started with that letter so they could make their very own alphabet wall but he had refused to tell him what he’d done because it was a “surprise.”

“I’m sure it’ll look great,” Alastair said, trying to keep the dismay from his voice. He’d been planning on saying his goodbye to Eliot outside the classroom in the hopes of not seeing Mr. Lightwood but that was completely out the window now. There was no way Eliot would let Alastair leave without seeing his painting tacked proudly to the wall.

"Mmmhm,” Eliot said in agreement, still skipping lightly as they entered the school and made their way down the now familiar hall. “I worked really, really hard on it!” He told his brother proudly and Alastair inwardly cursed. Absolutely no way in Hell was he leaving this building without seeing that picture, then. All he could hope for, then, was that Mr. Lightwood was surrounded by his usual gaggle of swooning single mothers and fathers and too busy to notice Alastair slip in and out.

Unfortunately for Alastair, they must have beaten the usual crowd - despite hiding away in the car for several minutes - because there was no group of parents outside the classroom door biding for Mr. Lightwood’s time. Instead, as Alastair had no choice but to follow Eliot’s gentle but earnest tugging into the open door of the classroom, they were greeted to the sight of Mr. Lightwood, still impossibly large, seated at his desk with a small stack of papers in front of him. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps – there wasn’t yet anyone else in the room to distract from their entrance, unfortunately - and Alastair felt his heart skip despite himself.

Which was _stupid_. Alastair was an adult and he shouldn’t be reacting like this just because an attractive man looked at him. Even if said attractive man leapt to his feet the moment he saw him, his pen clattering down onto his desk.

"Mr. Carstairs!” He called and Alastair could almost swear there was something like nervousness in his voice. Which made no sense, Alastair had hardly the time to ever talk to the man and definitely not enough time to do something to make him nervous. Unless of course, Anna or James told him something about their weekend but James wasn’t that stupid – he knew Alastair would murder him, future brother-in-law or not – and not even Anna was that meddling or invasive –

"I know you’re busy, but I was hoping for a moment to talk?” Was that a _blush_ on the other man’s cheeks?

Alastair was going to _murder_ Anna Lightwood. And maybe James too, for good measure.

Even though every nerve in his body was screaming ‘retreat’, Alastair gave a small nod before bending down to Eliot. “Hey El, me and Mr. Lightwood have to talk about something, do you mind going over and finding your picture?” Alastair gestured to the far wall where a series of bright paintings had indeed been hung up neatly. “I’ll be over in just a minute.” Eliot seemed to sense there was something off, although he wasn’t quite able to guess what, for he stared at his brother and Mr. Lightwood – who had made his way over after Alastair had nodded - for a good few seconds, his dark eyes brimming with curiosity, before finally giving a solid nod of his head and darting off to look at all the pictures on the wall.

Alastair watched him go for a moment, mentally bracing himself for his conversation with Mr. Lightwood. It was bound to be horribly awkward but it wasn’t like Mr. Lightwood knew the worst of it – even if Anna had told him everything, Alastair hadn’t told _her_ everything and therefore the most embarrassing parts were still, thankfully hidden away and would never have to see the light of day. He would just have to get through this mildly embarrassing conversation about how neither of them realized they knew the same people and then they could go back to being friendly acquaintances. Mr. Lightwood would go back to his gaggle of five-year-olds and crowd of parents and Alastair would go back to his one little handful and work. It would be alright.

Or it would have if Mr. Lightwood weren’t the single-most attractive human being Alastair had ever had the misfortune to see. But he was, a horrible fact Alastair had to come to grips with fast as he turned away from his little brother to stare up directly into the warm hazel eyes of Mr. Lightwood. The other man looked almost bashful as he stared down at the smaller man – it shouldn’t have worked; Alastair liked bold confidence, self-assurance toeing but not quite crossing the line into arrogance, and Mr. Lightwood was almost the exact opposite. 

When he had first realized who Mr. Lightwood was, he had found it hard to reconcile the towering man with the small, slight boy he’d remembered from the Herondale Christmas party. But looking up at him now, Alastair could see the resemblance more clearly. His eyes were same warm hazel that he had remembered staring up at him with unhidden admiration as he had ran his fingers across the piano, his cheeks, although more angular with age, were painted with the same rosy pinkness now than they had been when Alastair had teased and prodded at him in that room so long ago, the way he brought his hand up to rub at the back of his neck self-consciously was merely a larger imitation of the very same action the boy had done when Alastair had asked him to read some of his lyrics aloud.

This man was the same boy Alastair had thought about countless times without realizing why, the same boy whose tentative smile had flashed through Alastair’s dreams even months after he’d first seen him. The same boy he had thought, very briefly, of after sharing his first kiss with some boy several years older than him in secondary school.

And this man, much like that boy had been even though it took Alastair years to recognize it, could be trouble.

But Alastair had dealt with trouble before; he’d excelled in it even, and he wasn’t about to let himself lose to Mr. Lightwood. Even if the other man had no idea what they were competing in.

Even if Alastair himself wasn’t sure what they were competing for.

“What did you want to talk about, Mr. Lightwood?” He asked calmly, puling himself together seemingly effortlessly. He knew of course, and he suspected that Mr. Lightwood knew he knew, but Alastair had the advantage in the fact that the other man had approached him and he wasn’t about to give that up by showing his cards too early.

Mr. Lightwood cast a quick glance at Eliot – the little boy was avidly looking at each and every picture his class had painted, sounding out the words he could read as quiet as possible – before turning back to Alastair, apparently satisfied that his brother wasn’t paying attention. “I got a call from my cousin Anna yesterday,” he began, confirming Alastair’s suspicions. She was _never_ going to hear the end of it after this. “And, well, I just wanted to apologize,” Mr. Lightwood continued, oblivious to Alastair’s budding plans for revenge.

His words stopped Alastair short. He had no idea what the other man was talking about. What was he apologizing for? “For what?” Alastair asked, his voice still even despite his confusion. Mr. Lightwood blinked.

“For not recognizing you!” He said, perhaps a little louder than he meant because he glanced quickly at Eliot before looking back at Alastair. “I should have recognized your name, at the very least.” He added, voice quieter.

Alastair was still perplexed. Sure, it was embarrassing to not have recognized each other’s last names, but Mr. Lightwood seemed to be more upset about this than Alastair thought the situation warranted. He seemed to have taken his lack of realization as some sort of personal affront against Alastair which made absolutely no sense. “It’s quite alright,” he told him immediately because, for some reason Alastair refused to dwell on now, the idea of Mr. Lightwood thinking he’d hurt or upset him in some way was completely unpalatable. “I didn’t recognize your name either and your cousin is one of my best friends,” he added.

“Yes, but still, I should have remembered you after –“ Mr. Lightwood began, voice low but urgent, before suddenly stopping, his face growing even more red. Thinking perhaps that someone had come into the room to drop of their child and that was why the other man had stopped, Alastair glanced around the room. But was still just them and Eliot, who had grown bored with the alphabet wall and had gone ahead to put his bag and lunch into his cubby before playing with one of the small wooden puzzles Mr. Lightwood had neatly stacked on a shelf. There was no reason for Mr. Lightwood to have suddenly stopped.

He turned back to the other man, expectant, but Mr. Lightwood seemed to have completely clammed up and looked nearly mortified as if he had said something he shouldn’t have. Alastair was completely thrown then, because he had no idea what the other man had been about to say, let alone whether or not it was embarrassing. Mr. Lightwood should have remembered him after what? It wasn’t like they were old school friends who had spent every day together, they had once met once and surely that wasn’t what Mr. Lightwood was referring to unless –

Alastair’s eyes narrowed as he considered the man in front of him. Could Alastair have made an impact on the other man in a similar way he had for him? Is that why Mr. Lightwood was embarrassed and apologetic? Because he felt like Alastair had been important enough that he should have been recognizable, even now? The practical part of Alastair thought that was preposterous – they had met only once, both hiding out during a boring holiday party and had bonded over not wanting to be there. There was no reason for that to be particularly rememberable. But what other connection did the two have? No one would apologize so strongly just because they didn’t recognize their friend’s fiancée’s brother, especially if they hadn’t met like that before.

It had to be the holiday party. Mr. Lightwood must have put two and two together after talking to Anna – perhaps Anna had even led him to it, the way she had Alastair – and he felt guilty because he thought he should have recognized him from the beginning. Which meant that, for whatever reason, their initial meeting had held some significance for the other man. And perhaps he had thought it had significance for Alastair too, because he must have been apologizing on the assumption that Alastair had also recognized Mr. Lightwood as that boy. He must have stopped talking because he had come to the wrong but understandable conclusion that Alastair didn’t remember that meeting after all.

Which meant Alastair had two choices – he could let Mr. Lightwood think that and drop it now. It wasn’t like he owed the other man anything and it would be simpler overall to just pretend that meeting hadn’t happened. But that would mean lying by omission and leaving Mr. Lightwood to being the only one embarrassed which was hardly fair. And it wasn’t like it would hurt anyone, to acknowledge they had met before. Nor was anything bound to come from it.

It was the look on Mr. Lightwood’s face – wide-eyed, red-faced and looking very much as though he wanted to escape back to his paperwork – that made Alastair’s decision for him. Feeling as though he might end up regretting this a lot, Alastair silently steeled himself and said, “do you still write songs, then?”

The look of dawning comprehension that erupted on Mr. Lightwood’s face was absolutely worth it.

“Uh, yeah.” He responded, a bright, self-conscious smile on his face. Alastair felt himself smiling back. “Do you still play the piano?”

“On occasion,” he answered, carefully omitting the fact that he had given up playing after the Christmas party for several years before picking it back up again when Eliot had been born. Mr. Lightwood’s smile grew, which was making Alastair’s heart thump uncomfortably, and he looked as if he was about to say something but before he could, a little voice cut into the conversation.

“Excuse me,” Eliot said quietly and Alastair nearly jumped as he felt his brother’s little hand come to rest on his leg. He must have gotten bored with his puzzle and come slinking over. Alastair had no idea how long he’d been there but he hoped it wasn’t terribly long. He really didn’t need Anna trying to bribe information out of his little brother. “Did you finish your grown-up talk?” Eliot asked once both adults’ eyes were on him. One of the first things Alastair had been adamant about teaching him was not interrupting and the easiest trick was telling him not to begin talking until the person he was trying to talk to was looking at him. It worked a solid sixty percent of the time.

"Yes,” Alastair said with a quick glance at Mr. Lightwood who gave a nod in response. There were voices and footsteps from out in the hallway now, which meant they had only a few seconds until a horde of parents and children came barreling into the room. Whatever moment they had been having – and it was hardly a moment at all, traitorous heart be damned – was long gone now.

Eliot seemed to have something he wanted to say, for he continued staring at Alastair with thoughtful eyes. Then he glanced to his teacher before turning back to Alastair and gesturing with one hand for Alastair to drop down to him. Alastair had no idea what this was about but he obediently bent down low close to Eliot. Eliot gave another quick glance to Mr. Lightwood before leaning in close to reach his brother’s ear and lifting one hand to hide his mouth. Then, in an obvious but failed attempt at being discreet, he loudly whispered, “Did you have to talk to Mr. Lightwood about James calling him a ‘creep’?”

Alastair’s eyes immediately jumped to Mr. Lightwood, now so high above him it was nearly comical. The other man had obviously heard, judging from the wide-eyed, shocked look on his face. Feeling more embarrassed than he’d felt for years, Alastair turned back to his little brother. He couldn’t be mad at him – not really, when he’d tried his absolute best to be quiet – but he also couldn’t help feeling like a child-sized muzzle might be a good investment. “No, we were talking about something else.” He was surprised at how even his voice was. “We already talked about that, remember? We don’t need to talk about it with Mr. Lightwood.” He continued speaking in a low voice even though he knew Mr. Lightwood was definitely listening. “We don’t need to talk about it ever again,” he added, his voice a little stern as he stared into his little brother’s face. He waited as Eliot thought through his words; waited until the little boy apparently made up his mind that his older brother was making sense and gave him a nod.

Alastair smiled at him then and gave him a quick hug. “Have a good day, I love you,” he whispered to him in Farsi, dropping a quick kiss on the top of his black hair before standing back up. Eliot grinned up at him then, all traces of hesitance and seriousness gone now, told him loudly that he loved him too and darted off to chat with one of the children who had just entered the room.

Leaving Alastair with a still dumbfounded Mr. Lightwood, the little monster.

"Why is Eliot calling me a creep?” Mr. Lightwood asked, his voice carefully low but on the verge of panicked. Alastair weighed his options.

“Ask James Herondale, he put the idea in his head.” He finally said. It _was_ James’s fault, after all. “I’ve got to go, see you later Mr. Lightwood!” And then he made his way out of the classroom as quickly as he could while still looking calm, wondering furiously if Cordelia could find a new person to love if he actually did end up murdering James.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this section; I had a lot of fun writing it! Alastair is a really fun POV to write from! Anyway, I have about half of the next section already written, so hopefully it'll be up soon(ish)!


	3. Chapter 3

Things settled once more after Alastair and Thomas's talk. Alastair was still in a rush most mornings and afternoons and Mr. Lightwood – or Thomas, as the other man had asked him to call him the next time they had a chance to properly speak, a week or so after Eliot had inadvertently insulted his teacher – was still surrounded by a small crowd of overeager parents more often than not. But there was a sense of camaraderie between the pair, a mutual understanding that their shared friends had given them. Alastair always nodded in greeting to Thomas and Thomas always went out of his way to say hello and goodbye, even if he had to break conversation with whatever parent had cornered his attention briefly to do so. And he always smiled brightly when he saw Alastair, as though his day was somehow made better or complete with the presence of the other man.

And they had spoken a few times when they had a moment. Mostly about Eliot and how he was doing in class, as was only proper, but sometimes they would share something about their shared friends. Alastair would be asked by Cordelia or James to share some wedding information – apparently Thomas was close enough with James to actually be one of his _groomsmen_ which made it all the more ridiculous that they hadn’t seen each other or at least realized who each other was sooner. Alastair didn’t much like being the messenger – they had cellphones for a reason and Alastair didn’t have endless minutes in the day to tell his brother’s teacher that the appointment for his tux fitting had been rescheduled – but he did, privately, enjoy the chance to speak with Thomas it gave him. Which might have been the intention from the very beginning, although Alastair would die before acknowledging it.

Sometimes Thomas had something to pass on from Anna or Ariadne – if Alastair was suspicious that Cordelia and James were trying to get the two to spend more time together, he was absolutely positive that was Anna’s intention because there was no reason Anna couldn’t just tell him that her mother had given her an invite to Alexander’s birthday to give to Eliot herself but he knew it would just encourage her meddlesome tendencies if he acknowledged them. Either way, he ended up speaking with the other man at least once a week and Alastair couldn’t say that he minded that. He didn’t mind anything that gave him a chance to see Thomas throw his head back in laughter at some sarcastic comment Alastair said without thinking.

It wasn’t much, but it was a pleasant interaction with an adult other than his two best friends or people related to him. Which was one of the main reasons Mrs. Evelyn Peters and her intrusive, interrupting ways had angered Alastair so much.

Alastair had pegged Evelyn Peters as the nosey, judgmental type when he first saw her looking down at one of the other mothers the very first day of school and she had done absolutely everything in her power to prove his assumption correct. She was one of the mothers who always clamored to get Thomas’s attention in the morning – which was rather strange to Alastair seeing as she mentioned her “ever-so important” husband after every other breath – and she always had something to say about one or two of the other parents or their children. Alastair had done his best to keep clear of her – he really didn’t need to be making enemies of Eliot’s classmates’ parents if he could help it and Eliot got along fairly well with Evelyn Peters’ son, Oliver, and he didn’t want to jeopardize any budding friendships for his little brother.

All his careful avoiding, however, went completely out the window after he attended a Parent-Teacher Association meeting the second month into Eliot’s semester. They happened once a week but Alastair hadn’t had the time to attend them – or interest, in all honesty. Alastair wanted to be involved in Eliot’s education but he didn’t fancy sitting in a room with other parents he barely tolerated and who barely tolerated him for an hour and a half to argue about the types of snacks children could bring to share with the rest of the class. But there was an in-school festival coming up next month and each class was responsible for some part of the festival and Eliot had been bouncing off the walls excited about it and when he asked if Alastair would be able to volunteer, all pleading eyes and pouting lips, it wasn’t like he could have said no. He’d informed his office he’d be taking the Friday of the festival off and made arrangements for Cordelia to take Eliot for the next few Tuesday nights so that Alastair could attend the planning meetings. 

It should have been simple. Alastair had made an effort to volunteer at Eliot’s preschool a few times a year so he was familiar with the general politics of working with other parents and he was pretty well versed in keeping his mouth in check against passive aggressive or outright rude comments. He would show up, squabble with other parents on how they should implement the ideas the children had come up with, perhaps quietly complain with a few of the parents Alastair did get along with – the yoga pants mom from the first day who had introduced herself as Molly Williams was pretty agreeable and she and Alastair had made it a habit of making eye contact and rolling their eyes whenever they both heard Evelyn Peters say something particularly aggravating – and eat a few of the snacks some parent volunteered to bring.

Alastair had expected it to be tiresome but not actually terrible. But he had underestimated Evelyn. Peters. He had thought she was a stereotypical, judgmental upper-class stay-at-home mother but he was wrong. Evelyn Peters was indeed a stereotypical, judgmental, upper-class stay-at-home mother but she was also evil incarnate.

And Alastair was going to _destroy_ her.

The Tuesday evening had started out fine. Cordelia had taken Eliot to dinner at Anna’s brother’s house – Christopher was a mad scientist if Alastair had ever met one and very inattentive at best, but he also loved sharing his knowledge with people and, as long as another adult was in the room at all times, Alastair had no problem with him showing Eliot whatever cool science experiment he had come up with for the little boy. Especially because it meant whatever inevitable mess they made was at someone else’s apartment and – therefore – someone else’s problem. Alastair had been a little late coming out of work but had made decent time even in the early evening traffic and had gotten to the school a few minutes’ shy of being late.

The classroom was already filled with a surprising amount of parents – Thomas still proved to be popular, even two months into the semester, evidently – but Alastair spied Molly sitting at a round table furthest from the front of the classroom and made to take the empty seat next to her. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Evelyn Peters had spotted him first.

“Oh, Alastair!” She called, waving a hand to get his attention. He wasn’t quite sure why she was addressing him so familiarly – he had gone out of his way to never speak with her for a _reason_ – but he thought it prudent not to make a big deal of it as he turned, reluctantly, to face her.

"Hello, Evelyn,” he said politely, smoothing away his irritation with great effort. He didn’t like the way she’d said his name, all soft surprise and over-familiarity, but Evelyn Peters – Evelyn, as evidently they were on first name basis despite not knowing each other – was the head of the Parent-Teacher Association, according to Molly, and Alastair didn’t want to make things difficult.

Evelyn didn’t seem to register his annoyance at all, so he must have done a decent enough job of hiding it. “I didn’t know you were coming!” She said, voice still dripping with surprise. Alastair resisted every impulse to say something rude – it wasn’t like Evelyn was actually being terrible, even if her surprise was grating.

“Why wouldn’t I come?” He asked. “My brother is really excited about the festival and asked if I could help.” He added so that his words wouldn’t come off as argumentative.

“Well, I’m glad he is!” Evelyn responded, all bright smiles. “And I’m glad you’re here. It must have been difficult, finding someone to watch your brother?” Her voice seemed to drip with false concern then and Alastair tensed up. He’d have variants of this conversation before, each as unpleasant as the last.

“Why would it have been?” He asked, voice full of false confusion. He knew exactly what she was alluding to, but he wanted to hear her say it.

Evelyn seemed confused for a moment, as though her words had been obvious. “Well, I just meant since it’s just you raising him, right? It can’t be easy to find someone to watch him when you make a last-minute decision?”

Alastair swallowed what he wanted to say – _why do you think it was a last-minute decision, you hag? –_ and instead merely said, “Not at all.” He would have walked away then and allowed his irritation to ebb away after a few comments to Molly but Evelyn opened her mouth before he could.

“I’m so glad it wasn’t hard, then! And I just wanted to say-“ her voice dropped as she glanced around the room, as though checking that no one was listening in. “How _much_ I admire you. You know, not a lot of people in your situation would be willing to take on raising a sibling like you have. I suppose your parents passed?”

Alastair nearly saw red. There were so many things wrong with what Evelyn Peters had just said to him – the assumption that he was having difficulty as a single parent, the patronizing tone in her voice as she said how much she admired him when what she really meant she was shocked he was doing it, the presumptive belief that she could ask about his and Eliot’s personal lives – but the bald-faced inquiry into their parents was the worst to him. She acted as though, because she seemed polite and told him she admired him for doing what any decent person with the ability to do so would, she had license to ask personal, intrusive questions. Alastair had dealt with that before, on several occasions, and he had no more patience for it now than he had the first time it happened.

He dropped his expression of cold politeness, glaring fiercely as he stared down at her. “I don’t see how that is any of your business at all, Mrs. Peters.” His voice was cold and he didn’t bother to keep either the volume or his indignation down. Several people turned to look at the two of them, taking in Alastair’s angry expression and Evelyn Peters' gobsmacked one and probably coming to various conclusions, but Alastair paid them no mind. He stared Evelyn Peters down for another moment before turning on his heel and making his way towards the back table where Molly was watching with wide eyes.

“What was _that_ about?” she whispered the moment Alastair had sat himself down in one of the undersized chairs.

“She thought she could ask personal questions and I corrected her,” Alastair answered simply, turning his gaze to the front of the classroom and inviting no further questions on the matter. He liked Molly well enough but they weren’t friends by any means and what had just happened was a bit more than mocking Evelyn Peters’ vocal hatred for athleisure wear. Fortunately, Molly was a relaxed and quiet person herself and seemed to accept this easily enough. She merely shrugged and turned back to fiddling with her phone.

They must have been waiting for Thomas, Alastair realized as he glanced around the room. People were staring at him openly, a few – friends of Evelyn Peters, he was sure – looked vaguely horrified at his outburst but he ignored all of them as he sat as gracefully as he could in the far too small chair, his back straight against it and one leg crossed over the other as he stared straight ahead, his face stony. Evelyn Peters seemed to have regained her composure enough to move back to her table at the very front of the room, where some of the parents who had been most obviously staring at Alastair sat, and was now perched on one of the too small chairs, whispering furiously with a man who kept shooting angry looks at Alastair every other word.

Alastair resisted the petty urge to give the man a small wave with great effort by neatly clasping his hands onto his lap. He didn’t regret what he had said to Evelyn Peters in the slightest but he also knew that, unless he wanted to greatly disappoint Eliot by not being able to help out at the festival, he couldn’t make every influential person in the parent-teacher association angry with him. Even if he really, really wanted to.

Minutes dragged on as the whole room continued to wait for the teacher. Most of the people had stopped staring at Alastair once it became clear that nothing else was going to happen but a few – notably the man Evelyn Peters was seated next to that may or may not have been her oh-so-important husband – were still sending glances at him every once in a while. Alastair didn’t really care that he’d made a scene but he was one more furious glance away from making another one when Thomas finally came barreling into the classroom.

“So sorry! So sorry I’m late, everyone!” He announced as he quickly made his way to the front of the room, the leather bag that he never seemed to come to the school without firmly clenched in one of his large hands. He seemed completely oblivious to the tension in the room as he set his bag on his desk and began searching through it, slightly frazzled. “I had something come up that took a bit more time than I was expecting,” was all he offered as an excuse as he finally found what he was looking for and pulled out a thin file.

“You don’t need to apologize, Mr. Lightwood,” Evelyn Peters’ voice, sickly sweet and falsely pleasant, carried across the room and Alastair resisted the urge to audibly scoff. “I just hope everything is alright?” She continued. Alastair thought she was laying on the doe eyes far too thickly but Thomas didn’t seem to notice in the slightest as he put the folder down on his desk and offered her a slightly abashed smile.

“Oh yes! Everything’s fine and there’s nothing to worry about!” Alastair didn’t know whether Thomas had shut her down on purpose or was just oblivious but either way he greatly enjoyed the way her face seemed to fall slightly at Thomas’s response. “Why don’t we get started, then? I’m sure a lot of you are here for the festival, so let’s start with that. The younger years have been assigned with supplying different foods for the festival and our class was given baked goods.” Thomas began, shuffling through the papers he had taken out of his bag. “The children got to pick whatever theme they wanted the room to be and they voted to do an ocean and pirates theme,” He continued, silently handing Evelyn Peters the small stack of papers and gesturing for her to pass them out. Alastair hadn’t been in an actual school classroom since Cordelia had been in secondary but he fell into the familiar rhythm of his childhood as he watched the parents in the room wordlessly pass around the papers. Thomas himself certainly helped with the feeling – Alastair had never heard him actually teach, always dropping Eliot off a few good minutes before the class began, and he was a little surprised at how much different his voice sounded while in the front of his classroom. It was still pleasant and kind, but there was an unmistakable undertone of authority that he dropped when speaking personally with people.

It was also _stupidly_ attractive but now was not the time to dwell on Alastair’s unfortunate, continuously growing teacher-kink. He pushed the thoughts away and took the paper Molly offered him. The top part of the paper was devoted to the basic information of the festival – the date and time, various activities being offered, reminders that the festival itself was free but requesting a small donation on entry – but the rest was devoted entirely to what Thomas’s class itself was doing – the theme, the types of goods they hoped to bring, the various decorations they were going to make.

“The children also got to vote for what kinds of goods they wanted to have. We decided that smaller treats would work better than having to cut anything –“ Alastair wondered briefly if that had actually been the decision of the children or if they had been gently steered to it by Thomas. He, for one, would not want to mix small children with cutting utensils of any sort. He still got uneasy when Eliot was using the “adult” scissors because he couldn’t find any of the several blunted pairs he had been given. “- so they decided on cookies and cupcakes. Although, if any of you have an addition you’d like to add, I’m sure we can include it?” Thomas paused there, looking briefly around the room to see if any parent was going to chime in. Alastair half expected Evelyn Peters to have a suggestion – she certainly was the type to have an overabundance of opinions, after all – but the woman was evidently content with what the children picked out for she remained quiet with the rest of the parents.

“Excellent!” Thomas beamed. “Then we can move on to the other points of discussion. First and foremost, we will need people to volunteer for baking, people to volunteer for helping to decorate the room on the day before the festival, and people to volunteer for supervising during the actual festival. A few of the children shared what they thought their parents and guardians could make or do to help, but it is important to hear from everyone here what they can contribute.” Thomas paused again, obviously waiting for the parents to volunteer for the various tasks.

Alastair had meant to volunteer for the day of. He had already taken time off to volunteer for the day of. But then Evelyn Peters raised her hand pompously and began, before anyone else had a chance, to speak. “I think, Mr. Lightwood, it’s important to add that parents should _only_ volunteer for what they are sure they can do.” Evelyn Peters glanced around the room at that, pausing just long enough at Alastair and Molly’s table to make it clear which parents she was referring to. Alastair resisted the urge to outright glare at her once more, settling for a stony expression that gave nothing away even as his insides seethed. The _audacity_ of that woman was astronomical.

Thomas, sweet man that he was, didn’t seem to understand the challenge Evelyn Peters had just laid down. “What do you mean, Mrs. Peters?” He asked, honest confusion on his face. Evelyn Peters smiled sweetly.

“I mean, we shouldn’t just allow parents to volunteer for _anything_. This festival is very important for the children and we really shouldn’t risk ruining it because parents sign up for more than they can handle.” Alastair was internally screaming as a few parents seemed to nod along with Evelyn Peters’ words.

Thomas still seemed politely confused. “I understand your concern, Mrs. Peters, but I’m sure everyone here knows their limitations. Now –“

“Excuse me, Mr. Lightwood, I don’t mean to be come off as rude by any means,” Mrs. Peters smoothly interrupted. “I just feel like we really should put in some precautions about what parents are allowed to volunteer for, to ensure that our children have the _best_ festival possible.” Alastair had already thought that Thomas must have an astronomical amount of patience, being a year one teacher and spending all day with a classroom of loud, messy five-year-olds for the majority of the week, but he had to acknowledge that Thomas must have had the patience of an actual saint for dealing with Mrs. Peters. Alastair would have told her to shut up, politeness be damned, if he was in Thomas’ position.

But Thomas was a far more patient, far kinder person than Alastair and instead, with a wide wave of his hand and without a hint of impatience or resignation, he said, “very well, Mrs. Peters, what were you thinking of implementing?”

It seemed Mrs. Peters had just been waiting for Thomas to cave to her wishes because she promptly answered, “I think that the level of responsibility should depend on how involved they have been before this point. For example, all the baking – which I’m sure we can all agree is the most important aspect of this – should _only_ be given to parents who have been to multiple meetings and have proven themselves _truly_ committed to being involved with the children’s education.” Alastair could have handled the blatant callousness – could have left the planning meeting inwardly seething but without opening his mouth – if Evelyn Peters had not chosen that _exact_ moment to cast another glance back at Molly and Alastair’s table. But Evelyn Peters, the atrociously horrendous woman, _had_ chosen to look back at Alastair then, and Alastair could handle a good deal of general awfulness – had even thought, given his personality, that he had handled it very well so far – but there was an absolute limit and Evelyn Peters had just waltzed over the boundary line openly.

“I _sincerely_ hope, Mrs. Peters,” Alastair drawled out, unfolding his legs and sitting forward in a deceivingly casual movement, “that you aren’t _truly_ suggesting that parents or guardians are less invested in their child’s education just because they haven’t attended any of these meetings before?” People were staring at Alastair again but he paid them hardly any notice, instead fixing his eyes steadily on Evelyn Peters’ as she looked back at him, surprise at being interrupted clearly written across her face. Alastair was so intent on staring the woman down that he hardly noticed the startled, almost shocked look Thomas had given him – evidently the teacher had not yet noticed Alastair sitting in the back of his classroom – and he dismissed it entirely as he continued speaking, his voice clear and carrying across the room, “Not everyone here is blessed with the ability to stay home and focus all their attentions on their children, you know, and it surely wouldn’t be fair to judge anyone on account of having a job or other commitment on Tuesday nights.”

Alastair’s words were meant with a moment of silence as everyone took in his words but he paid none of the other parents any mind, instead choosing to continue staring down Evelyn Peters. It took her a moment to smooth away the surprise from her face – she was not the sort of woman that was often challenged and almost never in such a direct way – but sooner than Alastair would have liked, she was composed again and wearing a small, insufferable smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Of course, I didn’t mean anything of the sort, Alastair,” Alastair resisted the impulsive urge to snap at her not to use his first name – they weren’t friends or even acquaintances in the slightest and he didn’t like the way her voice sounded when she said it, all fake motherly kindness – as she began speaking, forcing his face to remain carefully impassive even as she gave a little false giggle as though his words were completely ridiculous. “I’m sure you and anyone else who are new to these meetings are absolutely devoted to the children, but there are still way things are done. I’m sure everyone would agree with me that we should do what’s best for the children, and what’s best for them is to make sure that the most important parts of the festival are delegated to parents who have already proven they can handle them. I’m sure it would fit your schedule better to come and chaperone the day of than it would to have to take time to try and make something or come to the school early to decorate?”

She posed her words as though they were harmless questions, as though she was doing him a favor and being kind. Alastair very much wanted to slap the words out of her mouth. It didn’t matter that she was right and that it _would_ be better for him to chaperone the day of, both because of his work schedule and because his baking ability was barely average on a good day. It didn’t matter that his original plan and what he wanted to do was just help plan the festival and then chaperone the day of. Evelyn Peters had no right to pretend as though she knew what was best for him or anyone else in this room and he was going to prove her wrong no matter what.

“I think what is best for the children is to let everyone play to their strengths, regardless of if they have attended these meetings in the past or not,” Alastair responded smoothly. “I happen to be an excellent baker and would love to be able to provide some treats for the children to have at the festival,” He added. It wasn’t true at all, but his mother had been an amazing baker and Cordelia was now so he must have some sort of innate baking skill hidden deep inside himself. Certainly at least enough to make Evelyn Peters eat her own words.

“I’m sure you make delicious treats,” Evelyn Peters responded, lifting herself partly from her chair in order to turn and look at Alastair more clearly as she spoke. “However, you’ve never volunteered before and even if you had, I’m not sure the children would respond well to foods that are… _unusual_ to them.”

Alastair went cold. Then hot.

He stood up amid an outbreak of low, nervous murmurs from various parents around the room, “And why, pray tell, do you think I would make something so _unusual_?” He spoke loudly, the cold fury in his voice clear as day.

Evelyn Peters, either ignorant or uncaring to Alastair’s dangerous mood, opened her mouth to respond, but Thomas rushed to intervene. “I understand your concern about volunteering, Mrs. Peters, but your words about Mr. Carstairs’ baking were completely unnecessary.” There was a pointed tone to Thomas’s words, an underlying warning that Mrs. Peters was out of line that Alastair might have appreciated if he wasn’t so absolutely furious.

Evelyn Peters looked faintly abashed. Alastair didn’t believe it for a second. Every nerve in his body screamed at him to say something, to rail against her and her stupid, problematic words, to challenge her ideas and force her to explicitly state the reasoning behind them. But Thomas turned his stupid hazel eyes on Alastair, a silent plead for him to take his seat and Alastair, after a long pause in which he glared fully at Thomas, begrudgingly slammed back into his seat. 

He was here for Eliot, he had to remind himself. Not to argue against stupid, insufferable, bigoted mothers.

Thomas waited a full moment for his words to settle the room back down, his gaze traveling between Evelyn Peters and Alastair as though waiting for one of them to jump up again. Evelyn Peters was slightly flushed as she resolutely kept her gaze to the front of the class but Alastair refused to look the least bit contrite as he stared back at Thomas challengingly. He wasn’t sorry for his words, nor was he going to pretend to be. Thomas seemed to accept this easily enough because he turned his gaze back to the classroom at large and addressed them all. “Unnecessary comments aside, Mrs. Peters and Mr. Carstairs both raised some decent points about volunteering,” Alastair didn’t bother hiding his quiet scoff, earning himself an almost disapproving glance from Thomas and a quiet cough that might have been Molly stifling a laugh, “but I think it’s important to hear from everyone about this, so why don’t we have a vote?”

A chorus of agreement met Thomas’s words and he nearly smiled before continuing, “Alright then. Whoever feels that the baking and decorating should be reserved for parents and guardians who have volunteered before, please raise your hands?” Several people around the room raised their hands, most notably Evelyn Peters and all her friends in the front of the classroom, but Alastair was pleased to note that more than half of the adults present had kept their hands down. Thomas did a quick count before adding, “and those who feel that everyone should volunteer for what they like?”

The latter was overwhelmingly the majority as hands flew up from all around the classroom. It nearly pleased Alastair to see the dark look that briefly passed over Evelyn Peters' face before she had schooled it back into a pleasantly neutral expression. Thomas didn’t even bother pretending to count, he just nodded and said, “it seems that most everyone is in an agreement, then. Now, as for the baking, I felt it would be best to have at least three people baking each type of sweet. More are welcome, of course, because people can take home any extras, but at least three people will ensure we have enough for all the students and also means we can have a good variety. So, who would be willing to provide cookies?”

The rest of the meeting passed in an angry blur as Thomas continued asking similar questions and waiting for parents to volunteer for the various tasks. Alastair had raised his hand for both baking cupcakes – staring straight at Evelyn Peters defiantly as he did so – and for chaperoning for a few hours the day of. He had promised Eliot he would be there, and he intended to keep that promise. Once Thomas had written down what everyone had volunteered to do, he declared the meeting over and Alastair was one of the first to stand up. If he was forced to be in this stifling room for another moment, he really was going to do something most unfortunate. Most likely to Evelyn Peters but all her little friends were also free game, as far as he was concerned.

“Mr. Carstairs!” A voice called out just as Alastair had reached the door and he had to quietly count backwards from ten twice, in both Farsi and English, before he turned around.

It was Thomas who had called him, which was the only reason Alastair had stopped in the first place. The other man was still standing in the front of the classroom, easily seen over the heads of the people crowding the door. There were a few parents around him, obviously waiting to get his attention, including Evelyn Peters, but Thomas’s eyes were fixed straight onto Alastair. Alastair wanted to just turn around and get to his car, wanted to call Ariadne and release a tirade of expletives until he felt better, wanted to pick up Eliot and spend the rest of the evening watching awful, bright cartoons with him. The absolute last thing he wanted to do was step forward towards that group, try and talk it out or whatever teacher bullshit way to “settle their differences” Thomas had planned for Alastair and Evelyn Peters, and yet –

Those fucking hazel eyes kept staring back at him, expectant and almost pleading.

And Alastair couldn’t deny them, even if he wanted to.

If he killed Evelyn Peters, Thomas Lightwood was going to be charged with accessory.

Alastair stepped away from the door, sidling past the parents trying to leave, and walked back into the classroom. He stopped just short of being in arm reach of any of the others still in the room and leveled Thomas with a heavy expression. “Yes?” His voice was perhaps a tad too cold; Thomas didn’t deserve his anger, really, but it was hard to curb it. Particularly when he could feel Evelyn Peters’ gaze locked directly onto him.

Thomas – to his credit – seemed relatively unfazed by Alastair’s anger. Rather than flinch away or appear uneasy, he turned his calm eyes onto the group of adults around them. “I would like to speak with Mr. Carstairs privately, if you don’t mind. If you have any questions about the festival or any other matters, please email me or wait for me outside.” Alastair blinked back his surprise. Hadn’t he been called back to talk about what had happened with Evelyn Peters? Why would Thomas be sending her and her friends away, then?

Evelyn Peters was evidently just as confused. “Mr. Lightwood, I had been hoping to speak with you about –“ she began, but Thomas held up a hand and she fell silent.

“I’m happy to speak to you about anything you want, Mrs. Peters, but only after I speak with Mr. Carstairs. I’m afraid the matter won’t wait.” His voice was polite as always, but firm. Alastair was surprised that he had it in him – Thomas had always seemed an overgrown teddy bear to him, fuzzy and sweet without a hint of bite and quite a bit of self-consciousness. But he evidently could be quite assertive if it were warranted.

If Alastair wasn’t still feeling murderous, he might have been impressed.

Evelyn Peters was able to admit defeat at times, it seemed, because - after one long look at Alastair – she turned and left the room without another word, following the rest of the parents who had already begun leaving without a fight. Alastair watched them go and it was only after the door had shut loudly behind Evelyn Peters that he turned back to Thomas.

Thomas’s calm façade had slipped and Alastair was surprised to see concern clearly written across his face. He had expected annoyance, perhaps anger. He had expected the man to plead with him to try to get along with Evelyn Peters because she wasn’t just a heinous woman but also the heinous head of the parent portion of the parent-teacher association and could make a lot of things very difficult. But he hadn’t expected concern; not for him at least.

“What did you want to talk about, Mr. Lightwood?” Concern or not, Alastair was still angry and Thomas Lightwood was, unfortunately, the only person present. His words came out harsh even to his own ears but the other man didn’t even flinch.

“I’m very sorry for what happened, Alastair.” Thomas said, his voice low. Alastair tried hard not to let his surprise show on his face. This was the second time, then, that Thomas had apologized to Alastair for apparently no reason. Thomas had done nothing wrong, and yet simply because he was a better person than most, he was the one standing up and apologizing to Alastair.

It didn’t make any sense and Alastair cold feel his anger ebbing away despite himself. Thomas Lightwood was a very hard person to stay truly angry around.

Which, while not anger-inducing, was _incredibly_ annoying.

Alastair blamed Thomas’s stupid, pretty hazel eyes.

"You’ve nothing to apologize for.” Alastair reluctantly admitted. Just because he couldn’t justifiably take his anger out on the teacher didn’t mean he had to be _happy_ about it. “You’re not the one who said anything.”

“I should have said more.” Thomas answered back immediately and Alastair was surprised at the vehemence in his tone. “Evelyn Peters has always been outspoken and borderline rude sometimes and I should have seen where the conversation was going to go. It wasn’t fair for you to be the only one speaking out and it was absolutely unacceptable that she felt she could say such things to you about your baking or any other matter.” Thomas’ voice rose a little as he continued speaking and, for the first time ever, Alastair realized what an intimidating man Thomas Lightwood could be.

And how very glad he was, that Thomas Lightwood was a good man.

“It’s – well, I’m not about to say it’s fine, Evelyn Peters is a cesspool and I might just say that to her the next time I see her, so be prepared for that – but I don’t blame you. You managed the situation as well as you could and I appreciate that you said anything at all. Although, let us be clear that I can handle people like Evelyn Peters just fine on my own.” Alastair didn’t often find himself needing to reassure people on their behaviors and he wasn’t sure if he had done it well at all – especially by adding an almost snappish comment at the end but he really couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t some damsel in distress needing someone to swoop in and save him and he would make that abundantly clear to everyone he could – but Thomas didn’t seem distressed or upset by his words, so he went ahead and chalked it up as a win.

“I know you don’t need any help – you were handling her on your own just fine, really. But this is my classroom and I will not tolerate any nonsense like that. I don’t let the children speak to each other like that, I won’t let their parents either.” Thomas told him, his voice calm but resolute. Alastair couldn’t help but note that a determined Thomas was probably the most attractive Thomas.

He really needed to set himself up for a date or two, to get such thoughts out of his head. Or pick more fights with Evelyn Peters and let himself be too angry or annoyed to notice such inappropriate things.

“That being said, please do _not_ refer to Evelyn Peters as a cesspool in my class.” Thomas added, a hint of amusement now in his voice. “I do not want to be the one to tell you off for it,” he explained as Alastair raised an eyebrow at him.

“It’s cute that you think you could,” Alastair told him, a hint of a smile now gracing his own face. “But I will refrain. I shall only call her a cesspool in the hallway.”

Thomas’s resulting laugh was almost enough to make dealing with Evelyn Peters again worth it.

_Almost_.

* * *

Baking was the devil’s work. Alastair was absolutely sure, and there would be no changing his mind.

“Is it supposed to be lumpy?” Eliot inquired, peering into the metal bowl carefully. Alastair was almost tempted to tell him to get off the chair he was standing on, just so that he would be unable to see high enough to look into the bowl.

"I have no idea.” Alastair admitted instead, wiping excess flour off his cheek. Both he and Eliot were in right states – there had been a minor explosion with a new bag of flour at the beginning of their baking misadventure and everything inside the kitchen, including the people, had been lightly dusted with the fine powder. Alastair would have liked to say that had been the end of the disasters, but then Eliot had accidentally dropped an egg – there was still some sticky residue on the floor Alastair would have to mop up later as the housekeeper would not come in for a few more days – and then Alastair had spilled sugar because he’d slipped a little on the excess egg still on the floor.

Then the first batch of cupcakes had burned, and Alastair had a small welt on his thumb from when it had accidentally collided with the side of the cupcake tin in his haste to save the little monsters.

And now, for some godforsaken reason, the second batch of cupcakes was _lumpy_. Alastair had let Eliot stir it first, and then had taken over once the little boy’s arm had tired – which had been approximately five turns around the bowl, but Alastair didn’t blame him for that as the batter was oddly thick as well as lumpy – and he had assumed the lumps were just due to Eliot’s inexperienced ministrations. But he had been stirring for a full five minutes now, and the lumps had hardly subsided. 

“Should we call Cordelia?” Eliot asked, still peering into the lumpy mess uncertainly.

“Absolutely not,” Alastair said immediately. Cordelia had expressed some concern already over the idea of Alastair baking when he had asked her to send him a few cupcake recipes and he absolutely refused to prove her fears correct. He could handle _cupcakes_.

“What should we do? I think the lumps are getting bigger!” Eliot squawked, still peering into the bowl.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alastair told him, although he had privately suspected the very same thing himself. He stopped stirring. Obviously, this was not working as well as it had the first time, which meant he needed to rethink the process. He needed something stronger to beat the lumps into submission.

Alastair made a face when the solution came to him. He _hated_ using the electric mixer. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.

"Go get me the mixer, please.” Eliot hopped down and scurried over to the proper cabinet quickly.

“Here!” He called back, just a few moments later, running back over with the black machine and its little metal whisks firmly in hand. Alastair took it and pushed in both whisk attachments before plugging it in and sending a silent prayer out that this would go well.

The last time Alastair had used a mixer, batter had gotten absolutely everywhere. But that had been a while ago and he was more experienced now.

With some hesitance and a quick glance to make sure Eliot was standing in the center and not the edge of the chair – Alastair didn’t want him falling off in surprise if this went poorly – he turned the machine on.

He breathed a sigh of relief when batter didn’t immediately fling itself everywhere. The mixer pushed around the batter smoothly and Alastair could already see the lumps beginning to shrink, if only slightly.

It was going well; nothing was exploding this time. Perhaps if Alastair turned it higher, it would be alright. And then smoothing out the batter would go by even faster.

With a bit of apprehension mixed with the determination that he didn’t want to be baking all day, Alastair turned the mixer onto full power.

An immediate mistake. In the second it took for the mixer to speed up, batter flung out of the bowl in wide arches, hitting both Alastair and Eliot as well as all the counters. Eliot let out a cry of alarm and instinctively jumped back, nearly toppling over his entire chair. Alastair had to let go of the mixer – still beating wildly, the traitorous thing– to catch his brother’s chair before it tipped over completely. As soon as Eliot was safe, Alastair hurried to reach over and turn off the mixer but the damage was done. Half the batter was now out of the bowl, coating both Alastair and Eliot as well as the counters, floor, and – for a few particularly determined flecks – the ceiling.

“Well, the lumps are gone.” Alastair finally said, peering into the bowl at the small amount remaining inside.

"I’m calling Cordelia,” Eliot told him immediately. And well, Alastair couldn’t exactly argue against that.

* * *

“What have you done?” Cordelia asked, barely twenty minutes late as she walked into the kitchen, James at her heel. Alastair barely resisted scowling at her from his perch on top of the counter. He had been trying to wipe up the mess from the ceiling using a quickly readapted pair of tongs and a rag but was having difficulty reaching the centermost spot even while standing on the counter.

“Layla!” Eliot, the traitor, called out cheerfully as he dropped his own washcloth – Alastair had asked him to wipe up the counters as best as he could – and ran towards their sister as though she was some saving grace. It certainly didn’t help that Eliot only ever called Cordelia by the family nickname whenever he was trying to ingratiate himself to her – most notably when Alastair had punished him for something and Eliot wanted saving from said “unfair” punishment.

“We had a small incident with the batter,” Alastair answered stiffly as he watched Eliot throw his arms around Cordelia’s waist in a tight hug.

“It exploded.” Eliot added, which Alastair thought terribly unfair. It had hardly been an _explosion_.

“I can see that,” James spoke up, carefully sliding past Cordelia and Eliot and peering cautiously around the trashed kitchen. Alastair was rather surprised to see that he had come with Cordelia – he had been rather cross with Alastair over Thomas calling him at work after Eliot had let slip the ‘creep’ comment. Alastair didn’t know all the details but apparently it had involved a very awkward James trying to explain over his lunch break why he had even said Thomas might have been a creep in the first place, let alone in front of a small child without giving away the fact that Alastair thought Thomas was attractive. Alastair had appreciated the fact that James had kept quiet on that front but – as he had explained to James quite calmly when the man had confronted him after the call – the other man had been responsible for putting the idea in Eliot’s head and therefore he had to be the one to explain it, even if it would have been easier for Alastair to do it.

James had not appreciated Alastair’s sound logic, which had resulted in a bit of a cold shoulder from his sister’s fiancé.

Alastair would rather never speak again than admit that he was glad James seemed willing to put it all behind them now. Especially because he was taking a bit too much pleasure in the mess surrounding them.

“It wasn’t an _explosion_ ,” Alastair told the other man crossly as he watched him make his way over to him.

"Whatever you say,” James told him, using an indulgent tone he often employed for Eliot at his most stubborn. Alastair resisted the urge to whack him with his makeshift brush. “Get off the counter now, and I’ll get the rest off the ceiling,” James added, holding out his hand to take the tongs from Alastair. Alastair scowled but obediently handed over them over before jumping down from the counter.

“Oh, be careful!” Cordelia said as James quickly replaced Alastair on the counter, careful not to slam his head on the underside of the top cabinets.

“I’ll be fine,” James told her reassuringly, before standing up and reaching for the last remaining spot. Alastair was only slightly spiteful that he was able to reach it and easily removed the stupid spot that Alastair had been fumbling for a good five minutes. “See?” He added with a grin before jumping easily from the counter.

Eliot gave a little clap at the performance, which Alastair thought was blatantly unfair but elected to ignore it. James had just saved him from a day of half glares from the housekeeper. Alastair had told her point-blankly on her first day that he’d rather her be outright about her annoyances with him than bottling it up and randomly quitting one day – it had happened with the first one he’d hired, along with several nasty reviews that, while completely truthful, had made it hard to find another one – and she had taken it to heart with many half glares.

“Why were you setting explosions off in the kitchen, anyway?” James asked, handing Alastair’s tongs back to him. Alastair had to remind himself that he had just saved him from having to explain cupcake batter on the roof to his housekeeper to keep his tongue in check.

“I volunteered to bake cupcakes for Eliot’s class.” He admitted instead, just a bit begrudging. James and Cordelia shared a significant look and Alastair was suddenly reminded that he had blatantly ignored all of Cordelia's follow-up messages asking why he needed the recipes. 

“Okay, why?” James asked after a moment. Alastair gave in and made a face at him.

“Because I wanted to help with the festival,” He told him shortly.

“But you can’t bake!” James retorted, a hint of laughter in his voice.

“I can bake just fine!” Alastair answered back, folding his arms over his chest defensively. The rag-and-tongs brush still in his hand brushed against the worn sweater he was wearing but he hardly paid it any mind. It wasn’t like he wasn’t currently a mess, anyway. “I baked those cakes for family dinner just a few weeks ago!” He added, pointedly ignoring the swoop in his stomach as he said it. Even after several years, it was still odd to say aloud that family dinners now included the Herondales and not his own mother.

“They were burnt!” James said immediately, his voice now full of barely held-back laughter. His words weren’t even fair. Sure, the cakes had been a bit on the darker side and slightly lopsided as well, but they hadn’t been actually _burnt_.

“Are we really fighting over this, right now?” Cordelia cut smoothly into conversation with a pointed gesture at Eliot still standing close by her, one fist raised to tightly clench onto the hem of Cordelia’s shirt as he watched the two men argue with wide eyes. Alastair made a face at her too, for good measure, before graciously dropping the argument. Whether or not his cakes had been bad then was debatable; there was no denying that his cupcakes were now. “I didn’t think so,” Cordelia spoke again once she was sure she had cowed the two men into silence. “Now, _why_ did you decide to volunteer for cupcakes?” She asked Alastair. “I thought you were volunteering for the day of?”

Alastair weighed his options. If he was honest, Cordelia was going to be upset, both at what Evelyn Peters had said and at how Alastair had responded. If he lied, however, the two of them were going to come to some ridiculous, wild conclusion that would undoubtedly come back to haunt him.

In the end, he decided being embarrassed now would be better than in the future. “Hey, El? Do you think you could go get some more dish clothes? There’s a basket of them in the laundry room.” Alastair couldn’t risk telling Cordelia and James what had happened in front of his brother – who knew what that little boy would pick up on and take back with him to school. Eliot, who seemed keen to leave the disaster area that had once been their kitchen, nodded quickly and raced out of the room, almost sliding across the floor in his socks.

“You aren’t allowed to laugh,” Alastair dropped his voice the moment Eliot’s polka-dotted-sock clad feet had disappeared from view and James and Cordelia both moved towards him to better hear him. James had a half smile already on his lips, as though he couldn’t wait for this latest ridiculous to get more so but Cordelia looked slightly worried. “At the first planning meeting, this horrible woman – Cordelia you know the one, she’s always making snide comments too loud and going on about her husband –“ Cordelia nodded in recognition.

“Evelyn Peters.” She supplied for James’ benefit.

“Yes, her. Well, when I got into the classroom, she accosted me – I held my temper at first,” he added, seeing the sudden sharp look from Cordelia, “but then she began asking incredibly personal questions about Eliot and our parents and she took offense when I told her it was none of her business. She didn’t say anything at that moment, because I had left for my seat at that point, but when Thomas began the meeting she proposed that guardians who had not volunteered before should be limited on what they could do for the festival. I’m sure this was directed at me, even if she didn’t say anything direct, and I contradicted her that guardians should, of course, be able to volunteer for whatever they wish. I may have added, in that moment, that I happened to be a good baker which is when she said that, although she was sure I did make delicious treats, we shouldn’t give the children anything _unusual_ –“

“She didn’t!” Cordelia exclaimed; indignation clear in her voice. James didn’t say anything but his expression had darkened as he too understand the bias that had been implicit in Evelyn Peters’ words. Alastair nodded curtly.

“I stood up then and asked her what exactly she meant but before the situation could escalate any further, Thomas intervened. He admonished Evelyn Peters for what she said and then had it put to a vote. Most agreed in my favor, but I was still incredibly angry and so when it came to volunteer for things, I volunteered to bring cupcakes as well as supervise the day of.”

There were a few seconds of silence while the other two took in Alastair’s words. Then James reached over and slightly tipped the large bowl on the counter to look in at what remained of the batter. “So these are spite cupcakes, then?” He asked, voice surprisingly light.

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Alastair responded. “I am still making them for the children.” He added, trying not to sound too defensive.

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be making them at all if you didn’t want to prove this Peters lady wrong,” James shot back, withdrawing his hand to let the bowl clank back onto the counter. “So spite cupcakes with a dash of love for the children’s sake.” He said, looking surprisingly delighted at the concept as Alastair made a show of rolling his eyes. He would have said something more – argued the point of his cupcakes being full of neither spite nor love for the sheer pleasure of arguing with James, but Eliot chose that moment to come sprinting back in, several dishcloths waddled in his little hands.

“You didn’t say they were on the shelf!” He told Alastair, frowning widely as he handed the towels to his brother. “I had to get the stepstool!” he added with a pout. There were two shelves in the laundry room – one thin one high above the washer and dryer where Alastair stored the laundry soap and various cleaners he didn’t want Eliot getting into, and another one, wider than usual and more the size of a counter than a shelf, about level with the washer that Alastair folded things on. Eliot, small as he was, could only reach the very front of the shelf without needing to stand on something to give himself a boost. Alastair had known that, of course, just as he had known that his little brother would hunt out the stepstool by himself before coming back and asking for help.

He had also known, although he wasn’t about to reveal it to Eliot, that the difficulty in getting to the towels would ensure the adults enough time to discuss Evelyn Peters without the little boy. Eliot’s small stature really was useful, some of the time.

"I’m sorry, I’d forgotten,” Alastair let the little lie out easily as he took the offered cloths. Eliot made a small face at him but otherwise seemed to accept the apology easily for he turned to Cordelia with wide eyes.

“Will you help us rescue the cupcakes?” He asked her solemnly, puppy eyes in full force. Alastair watched his sister’s face as she took in the request. Part of her, Alastair was sure, disapproved of the idea of spite cupcakes, although Alastair still denied that was what they were despite whatever James’ opinion on the matter was, but another – probably larger, part was reluctant to disappoint Eliot and his puppy-dog eyes.

“Of course I’ll help,” Cordelia decided after a moment, giving in easily to Eliot’s big brown eyes. Alastair would have mocked her if he hadn’t known firsthand how lethal those eyes were. They were practically criminal and they had gotten Eliot out of more stern lectures than Alastair would ever willingly admit.

It also helped that Alastair really did need his sister’s help if he was going to bake successful cupcakes by the end of the day and mocking her for agreeing to help could very quickly change her mind.

Alastair could not serve burned or lumpy cupcakes to the festival goers, especially not under the watchful eye of Evelyn Peters. And as long as she never found out that the cupcakes weren’t entirely made by him, Alastair would be able to shove perfect cupcakes down her ever-critical throat without a concern.

With Cordelia at the helm, they made short work of tossing out Alastair’s batter and making a new, lump-free, batter. Alastair watched her closely from the kitchen table – she had wisely delegated both Alastair and Eliot to clean up and decoration duty while she tackled the actual cupcakes and James started on the frosting. How James had learned to make a decent buttercream was an absolute mystery although Alastair would have sworn he heard him mutter “Matthew” when he prodded him teasingly. Alastair had seen his sister make sweets dozens of times, had her movements memorized nearly by heart just as he had his mother’s as a child, but try as he might, he had never been able to replicate them.

She hadn’t even taken out any different ingredients – somehow when she used the exact same materials and went through the same motions, it _worked_.

The kitchen just hated Alastair. That was all there was to it.

The smell of Cordelia’s perfect vanilla cupcakes were soon wafting throughout the apartment and Eliot, who had been sitting and watching with Alastair, sat himself on the floor with the oven light on to watch as the cupcakes rose and browned up in the oven. “They’re done!” he cried out happily, the moment the timer went off and scurried out of the way so Cordelia could open the oven.

“You always have to check them,” Cordelia told him as Alastair and James – who had just topped off his mountain of frosting with the last batch – walked over to the oven. They all watched as she pulled them out, keeping them low enough that Eliot could see the slightly golden color of the perfectly risen tops but far enough away that the little boy wouldn’t get burned. “You always have to poke the middle one and see if anything sticks,” she told him, setting the cupcakes gently on top of the stove before stabbing one with a toothpick. It came out clean, of course – despite what Cordelia had said about always checking, Alastair knew for a fact that she had all her times down exact for her own oven, the Herondales’ oven, his oven in the apartment, as well as the oven back in the family home, although it had been a very long time since they had cause to use it. Cordelia gave the still clean toothpick to Eliot who seemed inordinately pleased in himself despite not doing anything to create the perfect cupcakes.

Eliot turned and looked up at Alastair, waving the toothpick in his hand. “I _told_ you we should have called Cordelia!” He crooned, happy as ever to have proven himself right.

“Yes, yes,” Alastair said with a drawn-out sigh as he reached down and plucked the toothpick from his brother’s fingers before he ended up stabbing himself or another with it. “Layla has been gifted with the baking genius and I have not,” he told Eliot, the self-deprecating tone in his voice clear as day. Eliot immediately straightened up.

“You’re better at other things!” he declared loudly and Alastair smiled. Eliot had not yet learned that sometimes people said things about themselves that sounded mean but weren’t and he almost always tried to cheer or encourage that person, even if that person didn’t actually need it. Another good trait he had gotten from Cordelia, in truth, and one Alastair hoped he never grew out of. “Like reading bedtime stories!” Eliot added, apparently deciding his older brother needed more encouragement.

“I thought _I_ was the best at reading bedtime stories,” James fake-pouted, turning away from where he had been quickly sliding the still-hot cupcakes from their tin to give Eliot a wide-eyed betrayed look.

“You’re _good_ , but Al is the best.” Eliot told him as matter-of-factly as when he declared the sky was blue. James’s fake pout grew.

“Fine. But at least I’m better at baking.” He answered. Eliot shook his head.

“No. You’re bad at it too.” Alastair bit his lip to keep from laughing at Eliot’s continued matter-of-fact tone. Apparently, he did not think James was someone who needed the extra encouragement.

“I made the frosting!” James protested, gesturing at the giant bowl of white cream. Eliot glanced at it briefly before turning back to the older man.

“Frosting’s _easy_ ,” he declared. Alastair met Cordelia’s eyes – she had taken over removing the cupcakes to the cooling rack but had half-turned so that she could focus on the conversation while she did the task – and saw that she too was trying to hold back laughter. Eliot and James had a different relationship than either of them – whereas Alastair was almost fully seated in the “parent” group and Cordelia was firmly placed in the middle of the “parent” and “sibling” groups, James was almost completely fit into the “sibling” role. It might have bothered Alastair, years ago when both his mother and his disdain for James were still alive, but now it cheered him to know that, even if it couldn’t be him, Eliot still had someone to fulfill the role of older brother so nicely. Eliot could tease and fake-argue with James all he wanted, could go on cool day-adventures, and play with him all without the stricter role of “parent” clouding over the interactions and Alastair was immensely glad that he had that opportunity.

“It’s not easy!” James protested, a mock frown on his face but clear amusement sparkling in his golden eyes. Eliot narrowed his eyes in a fairly good imitation of Alastair’s face whenever he was telling the little boy to straighten up his toys.

"All you do is put butter in a bowl and mix it really fast!” He announced confidently, seemingly unaware that he was missing at least one crucial ingredient. James looked torn between amused and horrified at Eliot’s idea of “frosting.”

“That is not all it is!” He told him, shaking his head slightly. He looked ready to say more – Alastair certainly wasn’t going to stop him as he was finding the whole argument quite entertaining – but Cordelia, perhaps wanting to do something other than see her grown fiancé argue buttercream making with a five-year-old, cut in before he could.

"How about instead of arguing about the cupcake making, we actually make them?” She said, her voice gentle but firm. James didn’t even have the decency to pretend to look guilty, merely smiled widely at Cordelia while Eliot, who also didn’t look at all guilty for actually starting the fake argument, looked up at her in slight confusion.

“But they are all done?” He told her, gesturing to the rows of perfect cupcakes now sitting on the cooling racks.

“They’re done _baking_ ,” Cordelia corrected softly, “but we still have to decide how we are going to _decorate_ them.” Eliot’s eyes lit up at his sister’s words. In all the messy disaster of his and Alastair’s attempts at cupcakes, he seemed to have temporarily forgotten the best part of baking but he made quick time on fixing his mistake by dashing towards the pantry.

“We have to dye the frosting!” He called-screamed from the pantry as he loudly rustled through the shelves on the hunt for the decorations he had helped Alastair pick out. “I can’t find the dyes! Alastair!” Eliot drew out his brother’s name so it resembled more a plaintive cry than an actual name and Alastair took his cue and headed towards the pantry to help his brother.

“They’re right here, we left them in the bag to find them quickly, remember?” Alastair lightly nudged his little brother out of the way so that he could reach above him and pull a cloth bag from the top self. He then lowered the bag so that Eliot could peer into it and see that everything – from the blue dye to the tiny candy pirate chests and hats they’d special-ordered from the bakery – was all present and accounted for.

“Oh yeah!” Eliot exclaimed after he was finished with his quick scan of the bag. “Let’s go!” He added chipperly before scurrying back out of the pantry, leaving Alastair to carry the bag out after him.

“What do we have here?” Cordelia asked as Alastair placed the bag onto the still slightly sticky counter next to the frosting.

"We’ve got blue dye to make the frosting the ocean and we got shortbread cookies to make cookie sand and –“

“Slow down, El,” Alastair lightly admonished. Eliot was speaking fast and breathlessly as he tried to answer Cordelia and drag over his chair to the counter at the same time, making his words practically indiscernible except to him who was the most versed in understanding Eliot’s highest, breathiest, and most excited voice.

"Sorry!” Eliot was practically panting with the effort it took to get the chair over and James, taking pity on the little boy, reached out to gently take it from his hands. “Thank you!” Eliot crooned as James propped it against the counter for the little boy to climb onto. The adults watched with obvious amusement as he climbed onto the chair and began pulling things out of the bag, describing each material at a much slower pace.

"This is the dye for the waves. And these are for the sand. And then we got these palm trees so the cupcakes have shade. And then we got chocolate treasure chests because pirates love treasure! And candy hats because pirates love hats!” Eliot beamed as he proudly showed off the decorations he had helped pick out. There weren’t a ton of decorations out on the counter but he had put a lot of effort into the design of the cupcake and had been painstakingly careful in selecting the very best pirate decorations alongside Alastair. Alastair had not been able to appreciate the cuteness of his brother’s seriousness while spending half an hour looking at various palm tree cupcake toppers but he couldn’t deny that the way Eliot’s wide brown eyes glittered with pride as he showed off his haul was absolutely adorable.

“These are such good picks, Eliot!” Cordelia said, picking up the carefully wrapped package of chocolate treasure chests to get a closer look. “The cupcakes are going to look great with these on them!” Eliot grinned at her in response, obviously both pleased and proud that he had picked so well.

“We have to get started. It’s going to take a long time to make the cupcakes,” he told the trio of adults, his little voice nearly stern. Eliot took cupcake decorating _very_ seriously.

“Yes, sir!” James said, giving Eliot a little salute that made him giggle as Alastair came to the other side of his chair and pulled over the giant bowl of frosting. Alastair wasn’t the best baker in the family by far, but he had learned after he and Cordelia had made Eliot’s first birthday cake together that he was surprisingly adept at cake decorating. It was the least useful of the two skills but presentation was still important. _Especially_ because several dozen perfectly shaped treasure islands were sure to absolutely infuriate Evelyn Peters, whether or not Alastair had actually baked them himself.

"How blue should we make the water, El?” He asked, already half-sure on the answer.

“ _Super_ blue!” Eliot responded immediately, picking up the small bottle of blue food dye excitedly.

“Super blue it is,” Alastair said, a smile of his own curling across his face as he took the proffered bottle gently.

These cupcakes were going to be delicious _and_ beautiful.

And Alastair was going to shove one of them right into Evelyn Peters’ annoying face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!I really enjoyed writing this and I hope you liked reading it! This one was definitely more Alastair and Alastair and Family centric than Alastair/Thomas but I promise more Alastair/Thomas is coming up! I'll update with the (hopefully) last chapter soon!


	4. Chapter 4

Alastair was careful to not accidentally tip the cupcake holder as he gingerly pulled it out of the backseat. Today was the long-awaited day of the festival. Or as Alastair liked to inwardly call it, the day Evelyn Peters was going to eat her words. He and the others had worked for several hours the day before decorating each one of Cordelia’s perfect vanilla cupcakes with a charming little beach scene – a choppy sea of ocean blue frosting and a little cookie-crumble pirate-island oasis topped each one of the three dozen treats – and he was nearly bouncing at the thought of gloating over Evelyn Peters with the cupcakes.

He also, of course, looked forward to the children and their guardians enjoying the cupcakes too. But it was mostly about Evelyn Peters and Alastair was petty enough to readily admit that.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” Eliot, who Alastair had helped out of the car before reaching for the cupcakes, was actually bouncing up and down, his excitement for the day palpable. In honor of the theme of the festival, the school had decided to allow the children to forego their uniforms as long as they were wearing school-appropriate costumes and Eliot had jumped at the chance to wear the pirate outfit Anna had brought him. It had been Alexander’s costume a few years before when their side of the Lightwood family had decided to dress up as swashbucklers for the Herondale Halloween Party – why the Herondales had decided to start an annual costume party when they already had the monopoly on Christmas parties, Alastair didn’t know but he couldn’t complain when it meant not having to rush his little brother to the store for the “perfect” pirate costume.

Even if it had meant needing to get up twenty minutes earlier to help him into the ridiculously elaborate children’s costume. It didn’t make much sense why the Herondales had started up a Halloween party but it made even less sense why the Lightwoods went so hard for it. Alastair was mostly certain, at this point, that they were simply born that way but it was still outrageous that a costume for a five-year-old came with multiple layers and more than three accessories. But Eliot had been ecstatic when Anna had presented it to him with all the ceremony she’d born with and had been just as happy after getting into it and that mattered more than all the time wasted figuring out how all the pieces worked.

"I can’t wait to see how Mr. Lightwood decorated!” Eliot chattered as he clutched lightly onto Alastair’s arm – they couldn’t hold hands while Alastair was carrying the cupcakes across the parking lot but that didn’t mean Alastair was going to just let him walk freely through the lot without holding onto _something_. He’d seen the way some parents peeled into or out of the lot sometimes and he wasn’t going to risk his brother over their stupidity.

“I’m sure Mr. Lightwood and all the volunteers did a great job,” Alastair answered lightly. He hadn’t been involved with the decorating part but he knew there had been some elaborate plans on how to best transform the school room into a worthwhile pirate hideout.

“I hope they added our fishes!” Eliot added as they made their way to the front door of the school and he dropped his brother’s arm in favor of opening the door to let him through.

"Thank you. And I’m sure they did.” Alastair told him, sliding past Eliot to enter the school. Eliot’s class had made paper-mache tropical fish the week before the festival as part of their ocean science unit and although Alastair wasn’t quite sure how fish would fit into a pirate hideout – apart from dinner which would surely upset some of the children – he was sure that if any teacher could find a way to fit them in easily, it would be Thomas Lightwood.

Alastair and Eliot made their way carefully through the hall towards Eliot’s classroom – it was slow work as every teacher had thrown their doors wide in preparation for the festival which would start half an hour after the school day officially began, displaying all the decorations put into the various themes the children had picked out while the walls of the hallway itself were littered with brightly colored posters detailing what various classes were doing and supplying directions on how to get to them. There was no cohesive theme between the classes and Alastair had to guide Eliot away from an enchanted forest, a fairytale tower, New York City, and a space station before they finally reached their tropical island.

“Oooh!” Eliot gasped with delight the moment he saw into the classroom and Alastair couldn’t blame him. Despite his – completely warranted – hatred of Evelyn Peters he had to admit that she, as the self-appointed head of the decorating team, had done a fantastic job transforming the classroom into a pirate oasis. The walls had all been plastered with various ocean scenes – the far wall where the alphabet had once stood had been replaced with a scene of palm trees and tropical birds with an actual wooden chest set on top a carefully placed cloth that was obviously intended to be sand in front of them. The chest was filled to the brim with little “treasures” for the children – jewel-colored bouncing balls, pirate-hat erasers, bright yellow yo-yos shaped like massive golden coins and other things Alastair couldn’t quite make out.

Two other walls were dedicated to the ocean – one had jumping fish and dolphins posted all around to give the impression of movement while the other had a large pirate ship taped to it with the inside cut away around the whiteboard that dominated the wall. Someone with a decent hand with markers had drawn a scene “inside” the boat showing various pirates sitting around and eating sweets. The last wall, which was dominated primarily with the kids’ cubbies, had been makeshifted into some sort of aquarium with all the carefully constructed paper-mache fish tucked inside and around the holes.

The round tables that were normally scattered around the room had been lined into neat rows with table clothes designed to look like draped pirate flags covering them – all the tiny chairs that usually accompanied them had been removed and stacked discretely into a far corner. There was already a decent array of treats placed on the tables, along with small napkins with anchor and fish patterns and a large container of water and some cups for people who needed a quick drink as they made their way through the festival.

There were already several parents around the classroom, busy with last minute set up or with finding a spot for their own treats, but none paid any attention to Alastair and Eliot as – once Alastair was sure Eliot had gotten his fill staring at his transformed classroom and had gently nudged him with his foot to get him through the door – made their way into the room and towards a still relatively empty table. Alastair put down the cupcakes and placed a quick hand on his brother’s shoulder before he could rush off – there was a small group of children playing with some foam swords that had caught his eye.

“Help me with these, please. Then you can go play.” Alastair directed. Eliot pouted slightly but obediently unclasped one side of the cupcake carrier while Alastair reached for the other. The cupcakes had survived their perilous journey through London morning traffic unscathed and Alastair made quick work of pulling them out from the holes and carefully handing them to Eliot. “Put them on the platter.” Alastair pointed to one of the large empty pirate-ship shaped platters that had been laid out on the tables for the treats. Eliot was very cautious as he lined up each one of the pirate-island cupcakes into neat little rows on the platter.

“How adorable!” Alastair nearly startled as a voice spoke out next to them and Eliot actually did, almost dropping the last of his precious cupcakes. One of the parents, a man Alastair had seen a few times but had never quite caught his name, had sauntered over from the small group of early parents. “Sorry about that,” the man added as Eliot shot him an indignant look.

“They aren’t adorable,” Eliot corrected, as he carefully completed the last row of cupcakes, “they’re _pirates_.” He put emphasis on the last word as though it was incorrigible that someone would consider something even remotely related to pirates “adorable.”

" _Thank you_ , Eliot.” Alastair said pointedly before his little brother could loudly express anymore of his indignation. “You can go play now,” he added. Eliot was off before he had even finished speaking, shooting one last look at the other man on behalf of his cupcakes’ honor before leaving Alastair alone to deal with him. “He’s very exact about his cupcakes,” Alastair told the stranger as he snapped the lid of his now empty cupcake holder back into place. He didn’t bother offering an apology on behalf of his little brother – Eliot wasn’t sorry and it was pointless to pretend that he was, especially when he had already rushed off to engage in the raging swordfight happening in the middle of the classroom.

“Understandable. Pirates are very fierce, after all.” The other man said, amusement in his voice. Alastair waited a few beats; surely, the man had some reason for approaching Alastair apart from a passing compliment about his cupcakes – otherwise he would have already walked away. But the man didn’t say anything more and Alastair, with nothing else to pretend to fiddle with now that the cupcake holder was empty and packed back up, finally turned to face him.

He nearly startled, again, when he realized just how close the man was standing to him. He wasn’t close enough to be actually in Alastair’s personal space but he was definitely much closer than was generally acceptable for stranger-acquaintances. He was a little taller than Alastair, but slender enough that at least didn’t leave Alastair feeling boxed in between him and the table, and attractive in an unassuming, nearly generic way.

Resisting the immediate urge to remark that men Alastair didn’t know that well typically ended up in his bed when they stood that close to him – he was in a children’s classroom and this was a parent he didn’t know at all, after all – Alastair raised an eyebrow at the man and said, “do you need something?”

The man grinned as though Alastair’s words were charming rather than a little rude. “I just wanted to introduce myself, I’ve heard a lot about you and thought I’d see for myself if you were truly awful.” The man held out his hand for Alastair to shake, slightly bent at the elbow because he was still almost indecently close. As far as flirting went, Alastair had definitely endured worse and the man _was_ cute – the confidence he displayed definitely gave back some of the points his genetic genericness had taken away.

“You haven’t even given me a name,” Alastair told him, again without any true heat, without taking the other man’s hand.

He just grinned again and Alastair noticed that he had actual-honest-to-God _dimples_.

Perhaps it wouldn’t be too bad to give in a little to the man’s mediocre flirting. There was nothing wrong with a bit of innocent flirting with a fellow parent and he could be a good distraction from certain people Alastair definitely _couldn’t_ flirt with in the classroom. Maybe he could even prove an interesting date – or at least an evening. There certainly was a promising hint of mischief behind the man’s brown eyes.

Alastair nearly reached out to grab the man’s hand even without his name but then, still smiling that mischievous smile, the man opened his mouth and said, “I’m Eric Peters.”

Just like that, a potential good time was ruined.

He wasn’t even that attractive, really. His hair was rather lackluster and his confidence was actually a tad on the overbearing side now that Alastair thought about it more.

Eric and Evelyn, _really_? Matching spouse names were _worse_ than overly matching sibling names. At least the children didn’t choose it.

“I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of how awful I am, Mr. Peters” Alastair told him coldly, wishing silently that the man would take a step back as he leveled a steady glare at him. Had he never _heard_ of personal space? “But what ever your lovely wife has told you, I assure you I can be _much_ more dreadful, with the proper motivation.” The threat in his words were clear and Alastair was vindictively pleased when Evelyn Peters’ husband – who did not look like an oh-so-important type of man dressed in dark jeans and a simple button down - took a small step back and raised his arms in a sort of surrender.

“I think you’ve misunderstood!” Evelyn Peters’ husband said, a hint of laugh in his voice that Alastair didn’t appreciate at all. “Evelyn is my _sister_.” He said, as though that explained everything away which –

Well, at least it explained the _flirting,_ Alastair supposed. It was slightly less horrendous to have been tempted to flirt with Evelyn Peters’ brother than her husband. But it still didn’t explain why the man had approached Alastair in the first place. Or what he wanted.

And really, Evelyn Peters’ brother wasn’t far off from Evelyn Peters’ husband on Alastair’s rather long list of people he didn’t want or need to deal with.

“My condolences.” Alastair told him curtly and made to move away. He didn’t want a scene but Evelyn Peters’ brother was still far too close and Alastair wasn’t about to be _polite_. He’d push him out of the way if he needed to. Evelyn Peters’ brother moved with Alastair rather than force him to push him away, so he wasn’t completely stupid. But he was still closer than appropriate and he reached a hand to put on Alastair’s shoulder to prevent him stalking further away. So while not _completely_ stupid, he was remarkably close for a man still living.

If he didn’t remove his hand in the next instant, Alastair was going to rectify whoever’s mistake it was that kept this man breathing. Which he told him clearly in a steady, quiet voice with a rather terrifying glare.

Evelyn Peters’ brother rather quickly dropped his hand, his smile slipping slightly under the heat of Alastair’s expression and his promise. Before Alastair could make his way away from him, however, he quickly spoke up. “We definitely got off on the wrong foot here!” He told him hastily, his offending hand now raised along with the other in surrender. At least he had the sense to keep his voice quiet enough that it didn’t draw any of the other parents’ attentions. “I don’t get along very well with my sister – well, we do actually or she probably wouldn’t have agreed to let me chaperone with her today after Oliver asked – but I don’t agree with a lot of what she does. She can be quite abrasive.”

Alastair wasn’t sure why he was still giving this man the time of day. If he wanted to entertain excuses for Evelyn Peters’ actions, he would have opened the numerous emails he’d received from her supporters in the Parent-Teacher Association. But he had stilled, despite himself, and Evelyn Peters’ brother seemed to take that as consent to continue. “I know she can be a lot, but she’s my sister, right? You have to stand with family.” Alastair knew for a fact that standing with family was nearly as unnecessary as staying around to listen to this inane rant from Evelyn Peters’ brother. He still hadn’t even gotten to what he _wanted_. “But that’s not the point,” Evelyn Peters’ brother added, perhaps sensing Alastair’s thoughts.

“There’s a point?” Alastair asked flatly. He would have walked away but now there had been a few curious glances from other parents – people who knew who the other man was, undoubtedly – and Alastair wasn’t about to make a scene on the day of the festival. Or at least, he wasn’t going to make a scene before Evelyn Peters _herself_ arrived. 

Evelyn Peters’ brother flinched slightly. His confidence had gone out the window upon the arrival of Alastair’s outright hostility – the only part of him with good sense, evidently – and he tried for a sheepish smile, one hand reaching up to rub at the back of his neck. It was a similar move that Thomas made when he was feeling self-conscious. The comparison was not favorable to Evelyn Peters’ brother.

“I – I’m making a mess of this,” he said, trying again for a slight grin. “Let’s start again. I’m Eric Peters, Oliver’s uncle. You’ve met my sister, who doesn’t like you much, but my nephew adores your little brother and wants to invite him to his birthday party next week so I thought we could try and patch things over a little for the children’s sake.” If he had just started with that and not the unnecessary flirting, Alastair might not have reacted so strongly at his name. But it seemed the universe had given one Peters sibling all the judgmental hostility and the other all the social idiocy and neither of them the good sense to keep their mouths shut. Alastair was tempted to tell him that but he had made a valid point about the boys – there wasn’t much Alastair wouldn’t put up with for Eliot.

With a deep sigh and the absolute knowledge that he was going to truly regret his decision, Alastair stopped glaring at the other man. He still didn’t offer him a hand to shake – Alastair wasn’t that trusting or stupid – but he did drop some of his hostility. It was as much as he was willing to give Evelyn Peters’ brother. “Oliver is having a party?” Alastair prompted him, resisting the urge to fold his arms over his chest. Evelyn Peters’ brother nodded, his relief that Alastair was no longer glaring at him obvious. Alastair didn’t even pretend not to be smug about that.

“Yes, next Saturday at his house. The whole class is invited to the actual party in the afternoon but only a few are invited for the whole day; he was really hoping Eliot could be one of them.” Alastair would rather die than spend the _entire_ day at Evelyn Peters’ home, of course, but perhaps he could fake a previous engagement and send someone in his place.

Anna did always relish messing with people like Evelyn Peters. And she had a real talent for it.

“I’m sure Eliot would love to go.” Alastair answered after a moment of silence. Evelyn Peters’ brother seemed happy with the answer and he shot Alastair a small grin, as though Alastair had agreed to the party rather than simply acknowledging that Eliot would like it. He was reserving his agreement until he saw how Evelyn Peters behaved today, but the other man didn’t need to know that.

“And what about you?” Evelyn Peters’ brother asked; there was a light tone back in his voice, as though just because Alastair wasn’t actively glaring or trying to get away from him, they were fast friends.

“What about me?” Alastair answered, leveling a carefully bored stare at the other man. It wouldn’t do to let him think Alastair was too friendly.

“Would you like to go?” Evelyn Peters’ brother clarified. Alastair very nearly laughed in his face.

“I would rather rip my own hair out strand by strand, but sacrifices must be made.” Alastair answered back drolly. It was a surprise to hear Evelyn Peters’ brother laugh. It was his _sister_ Alastair was insulting, after all.

“You’re very honest.” Evelyn Peters’ brother told him, the confidence back in his voice now that Alastair seemed less likely to storm off or push him away. He angled his body slightly, then, so that he was leaning closer to Alastair without actually moving closer. It was a bold move for someone Alastair had very nearly shoved just a few minutes’ prior. “I can see why you didn’t get along well with my sister.”

Alastair didn’t get along well with Evelyn Peters because she was a judgmental, racist cow who hid her horribleness behind a thin veneer of faux politeness.

That was probably something he shouldn’t share with her brother. 

“I’m sure it’s one of many reasons,” he settled on replying. He was almost pleased when Evelyn Peters’ brother laughed again.

He had a nice laugh, Evelyn Peters’ brother. Especially when he kept smiling after, dimples out in full force. Alastair might bother to learn his name properly, if he continued to be not-terrible.

“Well, I definitely don’t share her reasons,” Evelyn Peters’ brother confided, his voice a little low as his eyes sparkled. He was back to flirting, now, as though the overbearing visage of his sister didn’t stand between Alastair and him. As though Alastair hadn’t just been excessively rude to him moments before because of said sister.

He was a rather confident man.

Alastair didn’t like that he liked that. Evelyn Peters’ brother was definitely a bad idea. For many, many reasons that started and ended with the fact that he was _related to Evelyn Peters_. There were men who were bad ideas and then there were men who were _bad ideas._ And Alastair had been very good to stay out of that second category after Charles.

"Perhaps you’ll just have to make your own, then.” Alastair told him resolutely, not giving into the obvious invitation to flirt with the other man. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, my friend just arrived.” Alastair gestured vaguely to the door behind Evelyn Peters’ brother where someone – Alastair couldn’t actually tell who, but that was hardly important - had indeed just entered the room. With an odd expression far too close to disappointment for Alastair’s comfort, Evelyn Peters’ brother finally stepped far enough back that Alastair could move past him without bumping into him.

Alastair had no choice to move to the door with Evelyn Peters’ brother’s gaze trailing after him closely. Hopefully whoever had just entered the room would be willing to converse with him for a few minutes until Evelyn Peters’ brother moved on to someone else. He was surprised, as he drew closer, that he actually recognized the blond man leaning against the wall by the doorway, completely absorbed with something on his cellphone.

“Matthew?” He called and the man’s head shot up. Matthew Fairchild was every bit as ridiculously attractive as he had been all the way back in secondary school with smooth fair skin, vibrant green eyes and a perfectly put together outfit and hairstyle. The only thing out of place from his memories of their school days was the cheerful smile that bloomed on Matthew’s face when he saw who was approaching him. Matthew had always had a bright, bubbly expression, even while protesting having to do archery for their physical education classes on the grounds of being a pacifist, but it had never once been directed towards Alastair while at school and it was still something that took him by surprise, some days.

“Alastair! Hello!” Matthew called to him, sliding his phone back into his pocket as Alastair came to a stop in front of him. “Thomas sent an S.O.S. asking for some extra help for this festival and I was the only one available. Well –“ Matthew cocked his head, thinking for a moment, “Christopher was also available, technically, but for rather obvious reasons, we all agreed it was best that he didn’t answer the call.”

Alastair was briefly reminded of the rather spectacular inferno Christopher had once turned their school’s chemistry lab into and had to agree. Christopher was probably not even _allowed_ into the school. “You do know helping out will involve children, not your cellphone?” He asked, voice dry. There had been a time, not that long ago, really, where his snarky statement would have resulted in a spat or even an outright shouting match, but now Matthew just laughed.

“It hasn’t begun yet, has it? And besides, I don’t see the teacher around to scold me. Where is Thomas, anyway?” Matthew made a show of looking around the room although it was obviously clear he was already aware Thomas hadn’t made an appearance yet.

“No idea.” Alastair answered honestly. He knew he had to be in the school somewhere – he must have unlocked the door to allow the early parents in to set up – but hadn’t caught sight of him in the classroom or the hallway outside.

“A common occurrence for you,” Matthew responded back automatically, zero heat in his words. Just because they got along well didn’t mean they had ever stopped being rude to each other. Alastair would have been disappointed if they had and he highly suspected Matthew felt the same. “Do you, by any chance, at least know why that man is staring at us?” Alastair didn’t need to look behind himself to know which man Matthew met and barely resisted letting out a small sigh.

"He’s just the uncle of one of Eliot’s friends. Just invited El to his nephew’s birthday party next week.” Alastair answered, only slightly reluctantly. Matthew looked briefly over Alastair’s shoulder towards Evelyn Peters’ brother and back to Alastair, a look of dawning comprehension on his face. Alastair did not like the look on his face in the slightest.

"Are you sure he only invited _Eliot_?” Matthew asked, his voice almost sly. Alastair didn’t bother resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“He’s quite friendly.” He admitted and Matthew grinned.

“He’s also cute.” Matthew added, darting another glance at Evelyn Peters’ brother. “Could be fun.”

“He wouldn’t be fun. He’d be a train wreck.” Alastair corrected. Matthew raised a single perfectly shaped eyebrow at him, leaning against the wall in a smooth, deceptively casual manner.

“Oh?” He prompted when Alastair proved unwilling to share the story clearly hidden in his words. Alastair made a slight face.

“He’s the brother of a woman I don’t particularly care for and who doesn’t particularly care for me. Even if he proved an entertaining date, it isn’t worth the awkwardness or the drama going out with him would cause.” Alastair explained.

“Oh. Evelyn Peters has a brother, then?” Matthew asked knowingly. Of course, James must have told him after he had come over with Cordelia to help rescue the festival’s cupcakes. James and Matthew were still thick as thieves, even after all the years, and it didn’t surprise Alastair at all that they still shared everything with each other.

"Apparently so.”

“A very cute brother who seems completely into you?” Matthew added. Alastair could hear the thoughts behind his words clear as day. No matter how sweet and guileless Matthew Fairchild looked, there was a rather large mischievous part of him just waiting to create a spectacle at any given moment. Alastair was not about to give in to his amusements.

"If you are about to suggest I flirt with that man to get back at his sister, I will have no choice but to tell you that man is an awful idea and the last time I dated an awful idea, _you_ lost a potential sister-in-law.”

"I never liked Grace much anyway,” Matthew replied easily, waving a hand around as though to banish the bad memories Alastair’s words brought up. “But if you are not interested, I won’t pursue it anymore. He does stare rather too much, anyway.”

“I told him you were a friend that I needed to speak to so that I could walk away.” Alastair admitted. Matthew raised an eyebrow once more.

“A friend? Or a _friend?_ ” He asked, just a hint of lasciviousness in his emphasis on the last word. Alastair rolled his eyes so hard they nearly hurt.

“Just a friend.” He said firmly. Then he thought for a moment. “Although, perhaps if I had intimated we were _friends,_ he wouldn’t be staring so intently.”

“Perhaps. Although we would make such a striking pair, I’m sure he would stare just because of our sheer magnificence.” Matthew dropped a wink at him then, sparking a surprised laugh from Alastair. He felt absolutely zero attraction to Matthew, of course – years of being at each other’s throats combined with the disastrous catastrophe that was his relationship with Charles had ensured that – and he knew Matthew felt the same – for much the same reasons, plus he knew for a fact that he and Lucie Herondale _and_ Jesse Blackthorn had some sort of unspoken thing going on – but there was something so light in Matthew’s flirting that he couldn’t help but enjoy. Matthew flirted with _everyone_ – second only to Anna, really – and it was a highlight of their friendship that he felt comfortable to do the same with him. “In seriousness, though,” Matthew added, his voice dropping slightly low, “if you want to try and get him off your back, I wouldn’t mind pretending to be your partner.”

Alastair knew Matthew would too – he had a reputation in college for agreeing to be people’s fake dates to get overeager men who refused to take the word ‘no’ seriously and had even done so once for Cordelia back when they had first moved to London. It was a tempting offer – or it would be, if Eliot hadn’t been in the room, just one look away. The last thing Alastair wanted to explain to his little brother was why he and Matthew were suddenly very friendly with each other. It was also, coincidentally, the last thing he wanted to explain to any of their friends when Eliot inevitably let it slip to them. Some conversations should never happen.

"Thank you, but I think he’ll give up eventually.” Matthew nodded agreeably, leaning once more against the wall and expertly ignoring the small groups of children and parents beginning to enter the room in earnest.

“Fair enough. Now, where’s my little buddy?” Matthew made a show of looking around the room but he really needn’t have bothered. Eliot had grown bored playing with the foam swords – or perhaps he was letting one of the other children have a turn whacking their classmates around – and had started looking around the room for his brother. Alastair knew the exact moment Eliot caught sight of him and Matthew thanks largely to the excited, high-pitched squeal that Eliot somehow passed for Matthew’s name.

The squealing proved the only warning before Eliot came darting between them, wrapping his arms around Matthew’s legs so tightly that if Matthew had not already been leaning against the wall, he would have undoubtedly crashed into it. “Eliot,” Alastair said, his tone warning even as Matthew laughed happily and swooped down to bring Eliot up into a massive hug. Alastair prided himself in the fact that Eliot rarely made scenes in public but there was no doubt that people were staring as Eliot giggled in Matthew’s arms. Alastair would have been more stern about causing a spectacle but it had been quite a while since his little brother had seen Matthew and, although Alastair himself didn’t really see the appeal, there was no denying that the blond was one of Eliot’s favorite adults.

“Oh hello, my little darling!” Matthew crooned, straightening up and placing Eliot firmly on his hip, as though the little boy was still a toddler rather than a five-year-old. Eliot, despite all his protests that he was a “big kid”, didn’t seem to mind the treatment at all as he beamed up at Matthew, one of his small hands tightly bunched into Matthew’s pink dress shirt. “You’re quite a fearsome pirate, aren’t you?” Matthew told him, making a show of admiring Eliot’s outfit. Alastair rather thought Eliot was acting more like an octopus than a ferocious pirate but decided to keep that to himself. The two children were rather enjoying themselves too much for Alastair to want to spoil it with teasing.

"I’m the scariest pirate!” Eliot declared, using his free hand to make a slashing gesture as though he was still holding one of the foam swords. Matthew obligingly made a show of nearly falling as though he had been struck and Eliot giggled as he was dipped backwards with him.

“Truly terrifying!” Matthew declared as he straightened back up. Eliot giggled again in delight and Alastair had to look away to hide his grin. It wouldn’t do to let Matthew see him smiling – he might start thinking he actually _approved_ of ridiculous displays like this. Turning his head put Evelyn Peters’ brother back into his sight and Alastair was momentarily surprised to see that he was one of the people watching Matthew and Eliot. He had an odd look on his face, part disappointment and part understanding and Alastair had to quickly turn away again before the man noticed him looking.

It seemed, completely unintentionally, that Evelyn Peters’ brother had come to certain conclusions about Matthew’s relationship with him and Eliot.

Matthew was going to be annoyingly smug, Alastair was absolutely certain.

He was debating whether or not he should tell the other man – he was now listening intently as Eliot relayed their baking debacle, gasping and nodding at all the exactly right moments – but before he could, Thomas came barreling into the classroom and made all thoughts of Evelyn Peters’ brother and his assumptions fly out of Alastair’s mind.

Thomas was ridiculously attractive on a normal day. Dressed in a Victorian-style pirate costume, complete with an elegantly detailed burgundy coat and a massive black hat, he was at a completely different level. Alastair had _never_ been much for roleplaying – it was often tacky and time consuming and most of Alastair’s relations were rather time constrained - but seeing Thomas Lightwood in that costume was certainly making him a believer.

“So sorry I’m late, everyone!” Thomas exclaimed, rustling right past Alastair to reach the front of the classroom without even noticing him. His words drew everyone’s attention towards him and Alastair could see that he wasn’t the only parent appreciating the outfit. “Pirate clothes are a bit more involved than I expected,” he added, with a bit of a self-conscious laugh as he placed his bag onto his desk – one of the only places in the room left unaltered by the decorating team. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes until the festival starts,” he added, pulling a small notebook and pen from his bag.

Alastair was fairly certain that he was about to begin running through a check list of everything they needed to make sure was done before the festival began, but all of Thomas’s words were drowned out by Matthew coming close to him and whispering lowly, “he makes a dashing pirate, our Tom, doesn’t he?”

Alastair barely resisted whipping around and instead only half turned his head to glare at Matthew. Matthew was grinning all-too-knowingly, the infuriating man, still holding Eliot – mercifully distracted by the appearance of his teacher in full-on pirate garb – on his hip. “I didn’t realize that you felt that way about Thomas. Should we expect wedding announcements, soon?” He whispered back blithely, knowing full well that outright ignoring would only encourage Matthew to say bolder and bolder statements in increasingly louder volumes.

“Should we?” Matthew responded back with a cheeky wink. Alastair didn’t know which of their friends had turned traitor and told the infuriating man about Alastair’s unfortunate attraction to Thomas, but he was going to hunt them down and do horrible, unspeakable things.

It was probably Anna, the minx. Alastair would have to call Ariadne and tell her in full detail the weeks’ worth of pining Anna went through when she was visiting her parents out of the city the previous year. Maybe he’d even mention having to wrestle the hair dye out of her irresponsible, tipsy hands.

He should have let her bleach her hair orange, the ungrateful woman.

“Certainly not.” Alastair whispered back, setting aside his plans on revenge for the moment. He was staring resolutely at Thomas rather than Matthew but he could still sense the amused smug look on his face.

“It looks like we have all the treats here, except for Mr. Wilson’s – I’m sure he’ll be here soo-“

“You know,” Matthew continued on, taking half a step closer to ensure that Alastair, still studiously not looking at him, could hear him clearly, “I’m positive Thomas would be –“

“Continue that sentence with my brother on your hip and I will remove your tongue,” Alastair whispered softly. Matthew obediently fell silent but Alastair could practically feel the smugness radiating off of him. Stupid observant blond disaster.

“-and then the last thing we have to do is decide which guardians will be staying here to monitor our room and which will oversee children exploring the other rooms, which we will discuss once everyone has arrived!” Thomas finished, smiling happily around the room, completely oblivious to Alastair and Matthew’s whispered conversation. The polite silence that had fallen in the room as everyone listened to Thomas broke and Alastair quickly moved away from Matthew before the man could try and continue the conversation.

Matthew made to follow him but Eliot, who had been patiently quiet while his teacher had been speaking, loudly declared that he had to show him all the “not adorable” cupcakes they’d made and Matthew was sufficiently sidetracked. Alastair made a mental note to do something nice for his little brother. Certainly, he didn’t know that he’d just saved his big brother from more hideously awkward conversation, but it was good to encourage such behaviors anyway.

Not at all interested in talking with any of the other parents – and steadily avoiding Evelyn Peters’ brother who had yet to be joined by his evil sister – Alastair made his way towards Thomas, surprisingly alone at the front of the room and rifling through some papers.

“If I said you looked ridiculous, would you make me walk the plank?” Alastair asked quietly in lieu of a greeting once he was close enough that Thomas could hear him. Thomas startled, just enough to send his stack of papers skittering across his desk but not attract anybody else’s attention, and Alastair couldn’t help but smirk a little. It was always fun, in a self-admittedly mean way, to send the larger man a little off-kilter.

“You think I look ridiculous?” Thomas recovered quickly enough to send a wide-eyed look at Alastair. If it had been anyone else, Alastair would have thought they were playing along but Thomas was, as always, all sincerity with a good dose of self-consciousness.

“I think you are pulling it off better than most men who try but the outfit is rather a lot.” Alastair admitted non-committedly. In truth, Alastair strongly believed that if Thomas had been a true 19th century pirate there would have been boatloads of maidens and quite a few young men trying to get ransomed but he would die before saying any of it.

Thomas looked down at his outfit with a rueful expression. “I couldn’t find a regular costume tall enough, so Lucie and Matthew helped me pick out some stuff to put together.” He said as though that explained the exuberant outfit. Knowing Matthew and Lucie, it really did. “It’s a bit more to their taste than mine,” he added unnecessarily.

“Clearly.” Alastair told him and Thomas offered a slightly sheepish smile, raising one hand to straighten one of the lapels of his coat. “Anna must have helped with some of the stuff too. You match with Eliot.” Alastair added, gesturing towards the table where Matthew was oohing and awing over the cupcakes they had brought. Thomas’ smile turned soft at the sight.

“That’s Alexander’s old costume isn’t it?” He asked and Alastair nodded.

“From a Herondale Halloween Party.” He confirmed. He bit back a grin at the barely susceptible shudder than ran through Thomas’s body. Anna hadn’t exaggerated the man’s hatred of Herondale parties in the slightest and it was amusing to see the way he reacted to even the barest mention of them. “Apparently the whole Herondale part of the Lightwood family went as pirates,” he added and nearly laughed as Thomas wrinkled his nose slightly.

“Well, it was good they still had the costume for Eliot to use.” Thomas said, diplomatic as always. “Are those the cupcakes you made that Matthew’s fawning over?” He said, quickly changing the subject. Alastair nodded.

“Yes, Eliot wanted to show them off. For some horrid reason, he _actually_ likes the man.” Alastair told him, his voice light despite his rude words. Thomas hadn’t been around for the worst of the Matthew-Alastair hatred throughout secondary but he had definitely heard some of the stories, at least judging by the slightly shadowed look in his eyes which looked as though he couldn’t tell whether or not Alastair was playing around with him or actually still actively disliked Matthew. Knowing Thomas, even just as an acquaintance-on-the-verge-of-friendship-and-also-soon-to-be-sort-of-family-adjacaent, Alastair could tell that he was beginning to worry over whether inviting Matthew to come help in the same classroom as Alastair was a mistake.

“I’m sure Matthew’d claim it’s because of his winning personality but I’m certain he slips him sweets when he thinks I’m not watching.” He added, a hint of an amused smile on his face. Thomas’s face seemed to relax slightly as he recognized the obvious joking.

“Oh, he definitely does. He used to keep lemon drops in his pocket to bait Christopher away from dangerous things when we were children.” Thomas confided and Alastair immediately added that tidbit into his internal Matthew Fairchild blackmail folder. He didn’t know when exactly, but that information was going to be undoubtedly useful later. Perhaps when Matthew decided to curse the world with his own well-dressed terrors.

Alastair was about to thank Thomas for the information but before he could, a bright swish of something coming through the classroom’s doorway caught his eye and he was immediately distracted by the appearance of an actual demon.

Evelyn Peters, dressed in an elaborate purple and brown pirate costume complete with an ostentatious hat and a full-length skirt, had finally decided to curse the festival with her appearance. Alastair had known she was coming, of course, but he still had to stop himself from sneering outright when she walked in, her arms full with a ridiculously large dessert carrying case, her bright skirt swishing with every step.

Alastair didn’t know what was worse. The fact that Evelyn Peters actually looked somewhat decent in the over-the-top costume or the fact that he hadn’t thought of taking up Anna on her offer of borrowing her own costume. He would have felt ridiculous, undoubtedly, but it would have been worth it to not allow Evelyn Peters to upstage him by dressing up.

As it was, the first point of the day went to Evelyn Peters. Alastair hated her a little more as several children, obviously captivated by the costume and unable to tell the difference between a woman and a witch, surrounded her. At the very least he could console himself with the fact that Eliot was too busy with Matthew to notice the new arrival and thus did not betray Alastair by joining the tiny crowd.

“You’re aren’t the only one who showed up for the occasion,” Alastair murmured idly, his voice deceptively casual. Thomas shot him a look of mild alarm.

“You aren’t still on the outs with Mrs. Peters, are you? I rather thought you too were getting along alright,” Thomas’s words weren’t exactly unfounded – Evelyn Peters and Alastair had been carefully civil with each other at every planning meeting, skirting around their animosity with paper-thin smiles and thinly-veiled insults, but they were hardly getting along. They were circling each other, like vultures circled a dying beast, waiting for an exposed weakness before striking. But Thomas was a kind man and a gentle soul and many of their hidden insults had flown over his head. It also didn’t help that both had been careful to keep their most obvious insults out of earshot of the teacher.

When Evelyn Peters had “innocently” commented at their second meeting that Eliot’s English was so good she hardly believed that they spoke anything else at home, Thomas had been deep in conversation with another parent – a benign man named Arthur Evans’ whose twins were rambunctious little things. And when Alastair had idly remarked how surprised he was that she found the time to attend all the meetings between all her beauty salon trips and oh-so-important dinners with her husband’s boss, he had ensured that Thomas was still completely absorbed in marking some things off in his planner. And so it really wasn’t a surprise that Thomas had thought they had reached some sort of truce.

“You aren’t going to get into a fight, are you?” Thomas asked after a moment of stretched silence. Alastair was almost amused to hear a bit of nervousness in his tone. He momentarily wondered if Thomas had purposely sought out stories of some of his and Matthew’s worst altercations after Alastair’s initial run-in with Evelyn Peters. He seemed the type to want to be prepared for the worst-case scenario.

It was quite smart of him, really, to consider Alastair’s wrath a worst-case sort of scenario.

“Don’t worry. I’ll behave,” Alastair reassured him. Thomas looked relieved. “As long as she does,” he added, just to be clear. It would not be kind to forego warning the man, after all. For a moment, Alastair thought Thomas might press his point on civility but he seemed to remember exactly how out of line Evelyn Peters had been at the first meeting, and wisely dropped the topic before it could become an argument.

He really was a smart man. Or perhaps, being close childhood friends with Herondales and Fairchilds, as well as related to the likes of people like Anna and Christopher Lightwood, he had simply learned to pick his battles.

And, as Alastair locked eyes with Evelyn Peters across the classroom and saw a triumphant gleam in her eye as she watched him over the heads of tiny children fawning over her, he was absolutely certain that this was going to be a battle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so originally this was going to be the end of the story but life has been a little hectic and this chapter kept getting longer and longer without getting close to the end (I swear Matthew just threw himself in there) and I figured it was better to split the end in two and have two slightly shorter chapters up sooner than have one really long one later! I really liked writing this chapter and I hope you enjoyed reading it! I hope to have the next chapter up soon!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Announcement: I know it's been a really long time, and that I added another chapter to the final count again and I apologize for that! I do plan on still finishing this, but I've been busy with a lot of other things. We are actually moving to a different part of the country this week, which means I won't really be able to work on any of my current stories at all for awhile, and I figured I would post what I have for all of them to make up for that. So this isn't a complete chapter, which is why it's shorter than the others, but hopefully it is enjoyable!

Thomas was oblivious to the tension in the room. Alastair would have been impressed if it weren’t directly leading to his suffering.

Mr. Wilson had arrived just a few moments after Evelyn Peters’ entrance, looking vaguely harried and carrying a large tray covered in plastic wrap as his twins ran around his legs to get into the classroom. With the last parent having arrived, Thomas had moved to finish the last of his to-do-list; namely, deciding which parents would go off with the groups of children and which would stay in the classroom to help out with the influx of students coming in.

Alastair had meant to volunteer to go with Eliot – the day was supposed to be about spending time with his little brother, after all. But as he raised his hand to volunteer to take one of the groups, so did nearly every other adult in the classroom.

Alastair should have known then what kind of day the festival was going to be.

Thomas, to his credit, had not seemed surprised at this turn of events. Instead, he’d merely smiled at the parents and suggested, in a tone that implied he had absolutely already planned for this situation, that the parents take turns with the groups, switching out when the children came back for their lunch break. Everyone had agreed – it generally happened whenever Thomas came up with a plan, Alastair had noticed – and then it had only been a matter of deciding which parents went when.

Alastair had decided to be generous and had, after a quick check with Eliot – who was still completely wrapped around Matthew - to make sure it was okay, agreed to be part of the group who stayed behind first. It was a nice gesture, definitely worth the small grateful smile Thomas had briefly given him.

Unfortunately for Alastair, Evelyn Peters had had the same idea.

Which meant, instead of spending the morning spouting pirate facts and jokes while passing out treats and toys next to a few adults he actually enjoyed while waiting for Eliot and his classmates to exhaust themselves with the first bout of parents, Alastair was stuck spending the morning with the absolute worst person in the world.

Alastair had started to suspect what kind of day the festival was going to be at that point.

And he definitely knew once he realized that, for some strange reason, Evelyn Peters’ brother had also volunteered to stay behind for the first round.

But Evelyn Peters was smiling all soft and sweet and Alastair knew the second point would go to her too, if he showed any of his displeasure, so he smiled too and pretended to be completely unfazed as all the children were rounded into groups of three or four and assigned to each of the lucky adults who were going to escape the horrors of Evelyn Peters.

“You behave for Mr. Wilson,” he had told Eliot, who had been assigned to a group with the twins and, much to Alastair’s resignment and Eliot’s own excitement, Oliver. 

“I will!” Eliot had promised, positively bouncing with excitement as Alastair reached down and gently straightened his pirate coat. And then he had been off, skipping along with his group, followed closely by Mr. Wilson.

And Alastair had been left behind with only the Peters, Matthew, Thomas, and another adult who Alastair didn’t know and who wasn’t all that important for company.

The moment the children and the rest of the adults had gone, Evelyn Peters had begun.

“I think we should have someone doing rounds in the hallway to try and bring children in!” She had said and Alastair had to resist the urge to scowl at her.

“I don’t think that’s necessary. Children will come in as they want.” Alastair had said instead, his voice politely mild. “It isn’t a competition after all, to see who has the most popular classroom.” He added. He didn’t want it to seem as though he was only disagreeing with her because it was Evelyn Peters. Sure, that was what he was doing, but he couldn’t let that be obvious. The war was a discreet one, after all, and Evelyn Peters had already won the first skirmish. He wasn’t about to give her the second by being too apparent.

“Of course not!” Evelyn Peters had responded, a little tinkering laugh in her tone that had nearly made Alastair’s body bristle. “But how do you think the children would feel, if they came back and no one had come in for their treats?”

“I think that’s a good idea, Evelyn.” Thomas had said then and Alastair had barely resisted sending the man a look. It wasn’t Thomas’s fault, really, that he seemed to believe Evelyn Peters was being sincere. “Why don’t we split in two groups – three of us will stay in the classroom and three of us will go around and try to bring some people in?”

“That sounds wonderful!” Matthew had chimed in then, voice cheerful and bright. Alastair had not believed for a moment that he was as oblivious to the tension between him and Evelyn Peters and his suspicions had proved founded when Matthew glanced quickly at him, shot him a little discreet wink and added, “Why don’t you three –“ he had pointed towards Evelyn Peters, Evelyn Peters’ brother, and the unknown adult – “go on ahead while me, Thomas, and Alastair man the classroom?”

Alastair could have kissed Matthew, if he hadn’t thought either of them would have spontaneously combusted, in that moment. In one neat sweep, he would have saved the festival day. Instead of having to deal with Evelyn Peters and her brother, Alastair could spend the morning with Thomas and Matthew which was all around better group, even if he would end up subjugated to a few more of Matthew’s pointed comments about Thomas.

Evelyn Peters, however, wasn’t about to let anyone not be miserable.

“I really think it’s best if Mr. Lightwood and I stay in the classroom. We are, after all, the _only_ two here who thought to dress up for the occasion.” Alastair had made a show of bending down to straighten up some iced cookies on a tray next to him, silently considering whether it was worth Thomas’s disappointment to “accidentally” smash the tray onto Evelyn Peters’ dress. He _knew_ he should have taken up Anna’s offer.

“I would have thought it would be better for someone dressed up to go around the halls,” Matthew had said, admirably unruffled by Evelyn Peters. “It would really attract attention, after all.” Matthew had smiled at her then, nearly sincere. “You should take some treats as well, really sell the appeal.” He had added, picking up the neatly aligned cookies out from under Alastair’s hands. Undoubtedly, with his and Alastair’s particular history, he had known what Alastair was plotting.

A pity, really. Alastair had been sure he had figured out how to make it look like a proper accident.

Evelyn Peters had looked ready to argue, as she always did best, but Thomas had smiled then and thanked her for her idea and the matter had been settled. Evelyn Peters had taken the tray with grace from Matthew, who had smiled benignly, and gestured to her brother and the other parent, still unknown, who had wisely kept quiet throughout the entire conversation.

That might have been the end of it, Alastair might have been able to still salvage the day, but Evelyn Peters had paused before heading to the door and leaned in close to Alastair, a soft smile on her face belying her evil nature. “Do try to smile and be nice, won’t you dear? Men like you can be _so_ intimidating when you don’t smile and we don’t want to scare off any of the children,” she had whispered and before Alastair had even had a moment to respond – which would have definitely included a fair amount of profanity and at least one cupcake mishap – the awful woman had moved away towards the door just as the first wave of small children, closely followed by an older woman, had stepped into the room, oohing and awing at the decorations.

Alastair had had to very quickly squash down his wrath and ignore Matthew’s curious looks in order to help a little curly-haired girl dressed as a fairy pick out a treat. And then he had helped Thomas explain the rules for the “pirate’s duel” – a game that consisted of the children taking hold of the foam swords and hitting them against a large, heavy stuffed pirate one of the parent’s had supplied until it fell over – and then he had busied himself helping the children pick out their prizes from the chest.

By the time the small group had left, beaming and excited with their little mouths and newly won treasures coated in sugary frosting and icing, however, Alastair was full-on fuming. And Thomas, sweet Thomas who was laboring under the assumption that Alastair and Evelyn Peters had reached a truce and hadn’t even noticed that Evelyn Peters had whispered something to Alastair before leaving, was completely, horribly oblivious. And even worse, he seemed genuinely and completely delighted at how happy the children had been.

Which meant that, as much as Alastair wanted to curse and scream and rant about the awfulness of Evelyn Peters, he didn’t. Thomas had worked far too hard and was far too pleased for Alastair to ruin it. Thomas had to remain oblivious or else his excitement for the festival would be ruined; thus, Alastair was suffering.

Matthew, not nearly as oblivious as Thomas to the tenseness in Alastair’s movements as he straightened the trays even though the children had hardly moved them, came close under the guise of helping him and whispered, “what she’d say to you?” There was true concern in his voice and Alastair knew that if he told the other man just exactly what Evelyn Peters had said to him, knew that if he told him exactly how she had emphasized the words to make it clear what kind of man she was referring, that Matthew would be on his side. But Matthew’s anger could be just as explosive as Alastair’s – and after spending his entire childhood with the Herondales, he had a much higher flair for the dramatic.

Alastair glanced briefly towards Thomas who was picking up a few stray treasures that had fallen from the chest after the kids had dug through it. If Alastair told Matthew, he knew Matthew would go to war with him. It would be spectacular, just as all their fights had been. Thomas would find out because Matthew lacked the ability to keep anything quiet, especially if he thought a wrong had transpired and the festival would be soured. And Evelyn Peters would have the satisfaction of knowing her words had gotten to Alastair enough that he shared them.

Alastair appreciated Matthew, at least a little, but handling Evelyn Peters required some level of discretion and plausible deniability. He had to handle her on his own.

“Nothing of worth, as usual for her.” Alastair whispered back, glancing back at Matthew. He looked wholly unconvinced but, as he had not actually heard a word of what she’d whispered, he couldn’t actually contradict Alastair. It looked as though he might try, but at that moment another group of children came barreling in, dressed as various Disney characters, and Alastair tactfully allowed himself to be caught up in their excitement at the treats in front of them.

“I like these!” One child with wild, long dark curls and dressed in a Flynn Ryder costume– Tangled was one of Eliot’s favorites and Alastair had sat through the movie enough times that he could recognize any of the characters at a glance – exclaimed as they pointed towards one of the tables. Alastair was unduly pleased to see that they were pointing towards the cupcakes he had brought. Even if Evelyn Peters was atrocious, she wouldn’t be able to deny that Alastair had brought delicious treats. She could choke on his success. 

“Oh, those are really nice, aren’t they?” Thomas had bustled over at the sight of the new group and Alastair was even more pleased to hear the genuine surprise in his tone. Thomas hadn’t had a chance to give more than a cursory glance at all the sweets to make sure they were all accounted for and the look of surprised delight on his face almost made dealing with Evelyn Peters worth it.

“I like them too!” One of the others, a small blonde in a too-long Snow White dress, exclaimed, leaning close to her friend to look at the cupcakes. And just like that, the entire group was clamoring over each other, exclaiming in delight at the sight of the tiny little islands. Alastair didn’t even have to fake his self-satisfied smile as he helped pass out one of his cupcakes to each of them.

The children did not stay for long – each room was intended for only a short visit, after all, to maximize the amount of rooms the children could experience before the festival ended – and it was far too soon that the swishing of royal cloaks and skirts left the room, accompanied by the brief, almost happy feeling Alastair’s self-satisfaction had given him. Vindictive pleasure could only do so much when the target of its ire wasn’t around to experience it, after all.

"These cupcakes are really quite good,” Matthew, who had abandoned his attempt to get information out of Alastair in favor of ensuring the children turned the foam swords onto the stuffed pirate and not each other, had walked over to look at the tray of cupcakes that had caused such a stir amongst the children. He picked one up, careful not to brush his fingers against the frosting of any of the others, and brought it up to his face for a closer look.

“Those are for the actual _children_ , Matthew.” Alastair chastised without any heat, inwardly pleased that even the ever-opinionated Matthew was impressed. At this rate, it wouldn’t matter if Evelyn Peters didn’t see the cupcakes – an empty tray where his cupcakes used to be would be just as vindictively pleasing as people fawning over them in the grand scheme of things.

It might even make Alastair smile, although he was certain it wouldn’t make him seem any less frightening.

“One wouldn’t be missed,” Matthew answered dismissively before pulling down the cupcake lining enough to take an experimental bite. Alastair was incredibly pleased to see the way his eyes widened slightly. “These are delicious!” Matthew exclaimed, far too loud in the quiet room, nearly startling Thomas who had been straightening the soundly beaten pirate once more. Alastair made a show of neatly rolling his eyes.

“Of course they are. I wouldn’t have brought a subpar dessert.” He announced matter-of-factly. His calm expression nearly broke into a smile at the surprised, almost betrayed look Matthew shot him as Alastair’s words hit.

“You made those?” Thomas, who had abandoned the poor pirate – he was leaning rather severely from the multitude of beatings he had been subjected to, asked as he approached the table. His voice was appreciative, almost admiring as he picked up one of the cupcakes.

“ _You_ made these?” Matthew, who had placed his now half-eaten cupcake down on the table as though it had betrayed him just as much as Alastair, asked just a fraction of a second later, his voice far less appreciative and rudely surprised. Thomas gave him a disapproving look that went soundly ignored as Matthew continued, “since when can _you_ bake? I thought that was Daisy’s thing.”

“I am a man of many talents, Matthew.” Alastair answered primly, inwardly resolving to make sure Matthew _never_ found out about the kitchen debacle.

“Undoubtedly so, but I was under the impression that those talents revolved around other rooms besides the _kitchen_.” Matthew responded and Thomas nearly choked on a poorly-timed bite of his own cupcake. The reddening flush across his cheeks made it clear that he understood Matthew’s suggestive words just as much as Alastair did but whereas the taller man seemed nearly scandalized, Alastair just smirked.

“ _Many_ talents,” he repeated and Matthew laughed as Thomas spluttered a little more.

“We’re in a _classroom_. For _five-year-olds_.” Thomas chastised them, setting his own unfinished cupcake onto the table to better emphasis his disappointment. Neither Alastair nor Matthew appeared the slightest contrite but both took pity on the easily embarrassed man and steered the conversation back to less murky waters.

“Seriously, when did you learn to bake?” Matthew asked, picking up his cupcake once more. Now that his surprise had faded somewhat, he seemed less offended by the concept of Alastair having made something delicious.

“It’s Cordelia’s recipe, I just followed it.” Technically not a lie. Alastair _did_ follow Cordelia with his eyes as she and James made them. “And my mother taught me how to do cake decorating when I was a child.” Completely true, although when his mother had insisted he learn a calming, patient skill it probably hadn’t been so that Alastair could use it to spite a racist PTA mother, but needs must.

“Cordelia always was the better of you two,” Matthew answered back, finishing the cupcake off with a flourish few could pull off.

"She’s also marrying your best friend,” Alastair felt prudent to point out, earning himself a spectacular eye roll and the both of them another one of Thomas’s disappointed “please-be-nice-to-each-other” looks.

“A better person for the best person,” Matthew responded, completely unfazed as he picked up one of the paper napkins to neatly wipe his hands off. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand such things.”

“ _Matthew_!” Thomas’s voice, normally gentle even when loud, was sharp with anger for the first time that day, surprising the blond man so much he nearly jumped. Alastair had to bite back a smirk at the way Matthew looked wide-eyed at his friend – it wasn’t funny, truly, that Thomas was so angry but there was something quite appealing about Thomas coming to his admittedly unneeded defense.

He would decidedly _not_ be unpacking that later.

“Thomas –“ Matthew began to try and explain but Thomas cut him off.

“I know you both had some issues in secondary, and I know Alastair hasn’t exactly been the kindest either, but you’ve gone too far and I won’t allow you to be so rude in my classroom. You need to _apologize_.” Matthew looked completely flummoxed. Alastair wasn’t surprised – he highly doubted that Thomas had ever raised his voice against Matthew very often, if it all. Deciding that, as amusing as it was to watch Matthew flounder, it was unfair to let him take the full brunt of Thomas’s ire when he himself was completely unbothered.

“Setting aside the comment about my kindness – for now –“ Alastair shot a pointed look to Thomas to let him now that he had not missed that particular statement, “I really don’t mind Matthew’s comments. It’s just how we are.” Thomas looked unconvinced.

“It’s not okay to speak to _anyone_ like that.” He told Alastair, a stubborn lilt to his voice.

“I agree.” Alastair answered calmly. “When the people aren’t friends. But me and Matthew – somehow – are friends, and we joke around like this often. It may seem odd but he didn’t say anything to upset me.” Thomas looked like he might argue but Alastair raised an eyebrow and continued, “but if you believe you understand our relationship better than we, as two full grown adult men, do, please feel free to share how we _should_ act together.” His voice was still calm, completely level, but the warning was clear. Even if Thomas meant well, Alastair wasn’t about to let _anyone_ disregard his own opinions about his own friendships or behavior.

There was a moment of both of them looking at each other, Matthew silent next to them and watching intently. Alastair wondered if he was about to have a full-fledged disagreement with Thomas Lightwood. But then Thomas broke, glancing down at the ground and away from Alastair. “You’re right. I made assumptions I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” Alastair felt his body relax slightly – he hadn’t even realized he had gotten so tense in the moments before Thomas had spoken – and he allowed a small smile to grace across his lips. He really hadn’t wanted to fight with Thomas.

"It’s quite alright. Isn’t it, Matthew?” Alastair looked towards the blond man. Matthew had an odd expression on his face, as though he was thinking deeply about some problem he hadn’t known existed. But it was gone in a blink, replaced instead with a small grin.

“Quite alright!” He exclaimed, turning his grin towards Thomas. “But we’ll try to be a little nicer to each other. At least while we’re here.” He added. Alastair nodded in agreement. Just because they thrived on being rude to one another didn’t mean they couldn’t control it.

Thomas looked relieved. Whether it was at the fact that Matthew and Alastair really were friends or at the fact that they would try to tone down the faux hostility, Alastair didn’t know but he found himself relaxing even more at the sight. He wouldn’t deny that he had been a little worried that Thomas would be upset at Alastair’s brusqueness. “At least in front of the children?” Thomas said, his voice questioning. “As long as you don’t really mean it, I don’t mind if you guys are snarky to each other, I suppose.” He added and Alastair, while certainly not the best at extending them himself, knew an olive branch when they were offered. He smiled slightly.

“I’m sure we can refrain in front of the children.” He agreed.

“Yes,” Matthew added and Alastair could hear the glee in his voice, could sense the words before they were actually spoken. “It might be difficult, but with some perseverance, I am certain Alastair can learn to control his impulses.”

Alastair knew he was baiting him, had known it was coming and already had a retort on his lips. But he stilled himself for half a moment, considering. He glanced towards Thomas, wondering if raising to the bait so soon would set the man off. But then he glanced back at Matthew and saw the triumphant lilt of his mouth. Alastair couldn’t just let Matthew _win_ and it wasn’t like there were any children in the room at the moment.

"“Getting a lecture about impulse control from a _Fairchild_ ,” He drolled, giving Matthew his most unimpressed stare, “Now, I’ve seen everything.” Matthew laughed and, after a moment of hesitance as though he was checking to indeed make sure no one meant anything by it, Thomas allowed himself a small smile.

Alastair was pleased. He would corrupt him yet.

More children came in, more treats were eaten – of which, Alastair’s still proved the clear favorite much to Matthew’s joking distress – and more prizes were awarded for fantastic pirate beating. Alastair felt his anger at Evelyn Peters fade almost entirely, overpowered by the flow of tiny costumes, sugar-coated smiles, and bright, excited chatter. It was hard, even for him, to maintain a bad mood in the presence of adorable children. Thomas and – although he would deny it if anyone ever dared confront him about it – Matthew around him helped. Thomas, now that he was certain Matthew and Alastair weren’t _actually_ insulting each other when they insulted each other, was obviously pleased at how successful their classroom was and at how happy every child who came in seemed to be with it. Matthew, who always shined in even the smallest of spotlights, was obviously enjoying helping out and being around the children.

Of course, it wasn’t about to last. Evelyn Peters wasn’t about to allow Alastair to actually _enjoy_ his day.

Almost the entire morning passed in peace without the reappearance of the woman – Alastair had to reluctantly admit after several adults commented on how sending out a few volunteers to drum up interest was a “fantastic idea!” that she was actually doing decent work – but, as Thomas’s students began returning with their exhausted looking chaperones in hand to have a quiet lunch in their own classroom, so did Evelyn Peters resurface. She looked entirely too proud of herself as she walked into the room, her brother and the other parent close behind her, and Alastair had to busy himself with helping one of the little girls locate her lunchbox before he did something rash.

Just like that, just at the appearance of Evelyn Peters back in the classroom, Alastair’s rage had returned full force. Her parting words echoed in his ears and he had to forcefully stop himself from accidentally crushing the little girl’s lavender lunch bag – it had been placed in a pile with other lunches behind Thomas’s desk – as his whole body tensed.

Alastair was no stranger to racist comments; in actuality, he had been told things far worse and far more outright than Evelyn Peters’ sly words. But there was something awful about Evelyn Peters’ brand of racism that made it somehow a little more digging, a little more lasting. Someone shouting at him to go back to his country was terrible, but at least they were honest about their racist intentions. But someone like Evelyn Peters, who enshrouded their racist beliefs in terms of faux caring, who purposely split people of color into good and bad categories, who exalted those who exhibited “good” behaviors while also condescending them with words of surprise they meant as compliments, and who could easily re-sort them into the “bad” category if they so much as looked at them the wrong way, who believed they weren’t racist at all just because they weren’t picking up the pitchforks and the torches to run them out of town? There was something heinous about them that Alastair had never been able to understand or forgive.

And the fact that it was happening here, in his little brother’s classroom where Eliot was supposed to be safe, had Alastair seeing red. If she would say them to him, what would stop her from saying them to Eliot? How much longer would it be until Evelyn Peters’ makes one of her little comments and Eliot hears it? How much longer until she said one to him, thinking nothing of it. How much longer would it be until Oliver Peters begins repeating his mother’s vile words directly to Eliot?

It was infuriating. But Alastair refused to make a scene now, hours after she had said the words. It wouldn’t change anything to confront her now, the words weren’t going to go back into her mouth just because Alastair called her out. And there were too many children about; it was one thing to call Evelyn Peters’ out in a room of adults but another in a room that was becoming increasingly full of children.

He would _not_ make a scene. Even if her stupid smug face was just asking for a cupcake smeared across it.

Alastair must have started glaring at the woman without realizing; or perhaps, after years of animosity, Matthew just had a sixth sense devoted purely to when Alastair was about to go off. Whatever the cause, the other man had noticed something for he sidled up close to Alastair and murmured, low enough that no one around would hear, “You want to tell me what she said to you now?” Alastair gave him a look out of the corner of his eye. He had already told him once it was nothing; even if that was obviously a lie, he expected Matthew to respect his privacy about it. Matthew returned his look easily, “might be better to get it off your chest before you end up losing it on her.”

Alastair really couldn’t argue with that. He glanced around to ensure none of the parents or children were in hearing distance – Eliot’s group hadn’t yet arrived and Thomas had been drawn into a conversation on the far side of the room so he at least didn’t have to worry about those two. “Is it that obvious?” He whispered back, his voice low. Matthew laughed lightly although if that was in response to Alastair’s words or to keep an appearance of casual conversation, Alastair wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter really; any chance of someone paying attention to them was dashed when one of the children, in a bout of uncontrollable sugar-high excitement, accidentally spilled water all over the drink table and every free adult rushed to help clean it up.

"If looks could kill, Alastair, Mr. Peters would be having a wake for his wife tomorrow.” Matthew said calmly as they both watched the mild debacle play out.

“Most people would call it a celebration,” Alastair responded, voice deceptively mild as he watched two of the children, one dressed as a pirate and the other rather creatively as a pirate’s parrot, race each other to a roll of paper towels that Thomas kept just for emergencies like this. “They’d probably play _The Wicked Witch Is Dead._ ”

Matthew choked back a laugh. “But she didn’t say _anything_ of worth to you.” His voice was lightly mocking as he parroted Alastair’s words back to him.

“She didn’t.” Alastair readily replied. “Racism isn’t worth anything.” He added, his tone still mild. Matthew didn’t have a response for that but Alastair felt more than saw as the other man turned his full attention away from the clean-up and towards him, expectant. Alastair bit back a sigh. He had wanted to avoid this but Matthew had a point – if he didn’t tell someone, he was going to end up blowing up about it. That would feel tremendously good the minute it happened, but Alastair would regret it afterwards. “She told me to smile because people like me tend to scare children off,” he admitted.

“That hag.” Matthew’s tone was just as mild as his had been but Alastair could hear the animosity in the words. He couldn’t deny the validation he felt at Matthew’s response. He knew his anger was justified, but there was something incredibly nice about someone else having the same reaction. "Would you feel better if I helped pour water all over her tacky dress?" Matthew asked, voice still mild. "It would look much more like an accident if it comes from me," he added. Alastair bit back a smile. He had been on the receiving end of several of Matthew's "accidental" spills, so he knew the other man was very good at it and it was a very tempting offer. 

But then Alastair watched as Thomas stood up to full height, a wad of soggy paper towels in hand, and loudly declared the mess defeated to the cheers of several little children, and he knew he couldn't take Matthew up on it. He couldn't do anything to jeopardize the festival, couldn't do anything that would ruin either Thomas's or Eliot's good time, and that meant being the better person. 

Alastair _hated_ being the better person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So it's a little short and definitely not the full story, but hopefully it was enjoyable! I'll try to be better about updating sooner this time but, in case you didn't read the first note, I and my family are moving this week and it'll probably be at a least a few days before I can write at all again.

**Author's Note:**

> So originally this was going to be a one-shot like my other Lightstairs stories but it got way too long so I decided to stretch it out over a few chapters instead of trying to have one massive chapter. This was largely based off the one theory (I can't remember who first said it but I saw it on Tumblr) that Sona dies and Alastair raises the baby, except I put it in the modern world because the idea of Alastair falling in love with his sibling's teacher is hilarious to me. I've had a lot of fun writing this so far, and I hope you enjoyed reading it! I plan to have this story done in three-four equal parts, and I've already started the next bit so hopefully it's up soon(ish)!


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